Security
License Compliance: How to Avoid a Vendor Audit Nightmare
Vendor audits cost mid-size companies an average of $260K in true-ups. Here is the SAM playbook that keeps you compliant year-round.
PPriya Sharma··7 min read
Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, Salesforce — at some point they all knock. The good news: audits are deterministic. If your records are clean and your seat counts are accurate, you walk away with a renewal, not a true-up.
The three things audits actually check
- How many copies / seats are deployed?
- How many do you own (entitlements)?
- Can you prove it with a contract and a system of record?
A year-round compliance routine
- Maintain a license-of-record system with seats vs. assignments visible at a glance.
- Auto-revoke assignments on employee offboarding.
- Reconcile usage monthly — a 10-minute job once you are set up.
- Document every contract change with a date, the contract PDF, and an approver.
AssetMon's License Compliance report flags over-deployment in real time, lists every seat by assignee, and exports to CSV your legal team will recognise.
#license compliance#software audit#SAM#vendor true-up