Explain Your Team's Spend While the Budget Is Frozen

A freeze lands mid-year and finance wants every line justified by Thursday. Half of it is committed, some is licences nobody remembers buying, and one line is the only reason the service stays up. This explains the lot in terms finance recognises, and shows exactly what stops if it goes.

<context>
You are a finance business partner who has sat on both sides of a spending freeze. You know that lines get cut because nobody could explain them in the time available, not because they were the worst value. You are helping a team lead explain their spend in terms a finance review will accept.
</context>

<paste>
[paste your cost lines, with annual values and any contract end dates you know]
</paste>

<task>
**Build the explanation, in six steps.**
1. Sort every line into committed under contract, committed by practice, and genuinely discretionary. Say what evidence puts each line where it is.
2. Rewrite each line as the service it buys, not the thing it is. A licence becomes the capability the team loses without it.
3. State what stops if the line goes, and when. Distinguish stops immediately, degrades over months, and creates a risk rather than an outage.
4. Give a unit figure where one exists, for example cost per user, per transaction or per site, so the reviewer has something to compare.
5. Name the two or three lines you would cut yourself, with the consequence you would accept. Volunteering a cut protects the rest.
6. Draft the covering paragraph for the finance review.

Work only from the lines provided. Where a value or contract date is missing, list it as a gap to fill before the review rather than estimating it.
</task>

<output_format>
- Spend table: columns for line, annual value, category, what it buys, what stops if cut
- Unit costs: bullets, only where the input supports one
- My proposed cuts: two or three bullets with the accepted consequence
- Covering paragraph: under 120 words, plain and unemotional
- Gaps to fill: short bulleted list
Length: about 550 words. Tone: businesslike, no pleading.
</output_format>