What a Good Microsoft Audit Outcome Looks Like
A good audit outcome is not zero findings. It is the gap between the auditor's opening position and the number you actually settle, plus terms you can live with afterward. Here is how to measure it.
Ask three companies how their Microsoft audit went and you will get three different answers, because most have no benchmark for a good result. They remember the final invoice and little else. A defended outcome is measurable, and the measure is not whether the auditor found anything. It is the distance between the opening position and the settled position, and the quality of the terms that follow.
The opening position is the baseline, not the result
Every audit produces an Effective License Position, the reconciliation of deployment against entitlement. The first draft is built to be high. It counts conservatively for Microsoft, it resolves ambiguity against you, and it often double counts use that a closer look would clear. Treat that draft as the baseline you measure improvement against, never as the answer.
The single most useful figure is the reduction from opening draft to signed settlement, expressed as a percentage of the opening exposure. A defense that takes a draft from a large opening number down to a fraction of it is a strong result, even when some genuine gap remains.
The four marks of a strong outcome
A good Microsoft audit outcome shows four features.
- A large reduction from the opening draft. The headline finding shrinks because counting errors, expired entitlements that were missed, and benefits you were already owed are all corrected.
- The 5 percent clause kept out of reach. If verified unlicensed use is held below 5 percent of total use, you avoid both the audit cost reimbursement and the 125 percent acquisition price. Crossing that line is expensive, so staying under it is a defined goal.
- Clean commercial terms. Licenses acquired at standard price where possible, no punitive uplift baked into a renewal, and no concession that quietly raises your next true up.
- A position you can defend again. The reconciliation and its evidence are documented, so the same questions do not reopen next year.
A worked comparison
The figures below are indicative and used only to show the shape of a defended result.
| Stage | Exposure presented | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| Auditor opening draft | Indicative high figure | Conservative counting, ambiguity resolved against the customer |
| After data correction | Materially lower | Double counted use removed, entitlements matched correctly |
| After entitlement review | Lower again | Missed benefits and existing licenses credited |
| Signed settlement | A fraction of the opening | Remaining genuine gap acquired on clean terms |
The story is not that nothing was owed. It is that the real number was a fraction of the opening one, and the path to it was evidence, not argument.
What a poor outcome looks like
A weak outcome is easy to recognize once you know the marks. The company accepted the opening draft with light challenge. It paid at 125 percent because the 5 percent line was crossed and never tested. It folded the settlement into a renewal that raised its run rate for years. And it kept no record, so the next cycle starts from the same blank page.
How we measure our own work
We judge a defense by the reduction we deliver against the opening position and the terms we protect, not by the size of the first draft. The opening number almost always overstates what you owe. We rebuild the Effective License Position from your records, hold the 5 percent line wherever the evidence allows, and leave you with documentation that holds up. We reduce your exposure or we reimburse our service fee.
See what a defended position looks like
Fixed Fee from $18,000 or Gainshare with no risk to you. We reduce your exposure or we reimburse our service fee.
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