Software costs are the recurring charges for the tools the business runs on: accounting, scheduling, booking, customer records, payments, phone, storage.
Why it deserves separate attention
It is the clearest example of a cost that grows without a decision. Every individual subscription was justified when it started, and nobody reviews the total.
The pattern is consistent across small businesses: a tool bought for one job still billing three years later, two products doing the same thing because two people each chose one, and a per-seat plan sized for a team that has since changed shape.
The three questions
Asked of every line, once a quarter:
Is it still used? By whom, for what.
Is it the right plan? Per-seat products drift upward as people join and rarely drift back when they leave.
Is it billed at the rate agreed? Introductory pricing ends, and the increase does not announce itself.
Annual charges are the ones to watch
Easiest to forget, largest single amounts, and by the time the charge appears you have usually bought another year.
Where to see it
Software and apps is the register of what you are paying for. Recurring payments is what is actually leaving the bank on a schedule, read from your transactions rather than from a list somebody maintained.
Where the two disagree, the bank is right — and the difference is usually a subscription nobody remembered.