Documenting Usage for a True Up

The figure you submit in a true up is a claim. Documentation is what turns a claim into a defensible position. Without it, you are negotiating from memory against Microsoft's data.

Documentation is the defense

A true up reduces a year of change to a single number. That number will be read, compared to Microsoft's telemetry, and possibly questioned in a later audit. When it is questioned, the only thing that protects you is the evidence behind it. An accurate figure with no documentation is indistinguishable from a guess. A figure backed by reconciled records is a position you can defend. The documentation is not overhead. It is the defense itself.

What to capture, and when

Usage documentation is far easier to build as you go than to reconstruct under pressure. The records that matter most are the ones that tie a count to a source and a date.

• A point in time snapshot of assigned licenses and active users for each product
• An inventory of on premises installs reconciled to identity and management data
• Azure consumption pulled for the true up period, by subscription and resource
• A record of joiners and leavers so the active population is provable, not assumed
• The entitlement baseline you are measuring growth against

Reconcile to entitlement, not to convenience

Raw usage is not a true up. The number you owe is the difference between usage and entitlement, and that means every usage record has to be matched to what you already hold. This is where careful documentation pays off. A reconciliation that shows, line by line, what you deployed, what you were entitled to, and what the gap is, produces a number nobody has to take on faith.

How good records change an audit

The value of documentation extends well past the true up itself. If a formal audit follows, the auditor produces an Effective License Position and you challenge it. A buyer with a year of reconciled records can rebut a finding with evidence rather than objection. A buyer without records is reduced to arguing from memory while the auditor argues from Microsoft's data. The clause is unforgiving: unlicensed use of 5 percent or more triggers reimbursement of verification costs and acquisition at 125 percent of price. Records are what keep a disputed line from becoming a penalty line.

A simple documentation standard

Make it a habit, not an event

The organizations that true up cleanly do not scramble once a year. They snapshot usage on a regular cadence, reconcile to entitlement continuously, and treat the annual submission as the moment they confirm a position they already understand. That habit turns the true up from a stressful guess into a controlled report, and it builds the evidence base that defends every figure later.

The next step

Documentation is the quiet difference between a true up that holds and one that unravels. Start with our pillar, the Microsoft Audit Survival Guide for 2026, then read what the annual true up demands and the true up data Microsoft relies on. Build the evidence as you go, and the number defends itself.

If you would rather not face that alone, we challenge inflated counts through our EA true up defense work.