Resources · The Audit Brief library

Defense playbooks for Microsoft and SPLA audits.

Each paper is written for the people who carry the exposure: CIOs, procurement, general counsel, and hoster compliance leads. Real audit mechanics, a defense framework, and a checklist you can act on. Trade a work email and we send the asset.

The library

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End customer · ELP

Building a Defensible ELP

How to reconstruct an Effective License Position that holds when Microsoft applies its own counting methodology from Azure, Microsoft 365, and management tooling.

  • The three ways Microsoft verifies and what each one means
  • A worked reconciliation against the 5 percent clause
  • An evidence checklist you can run this quarter
Download the paper
Hoster · SPLA

The SPLA Reporting Discipline Handbook

The structural defense for hosters: monthly SAL reports on time, sealed daily authentication counts, customer mapping, product version mapping, and documented multi tenant boundaries.

  • A monthly reconciliation worked across the 36 month lookback
  • How back fees and the negotiable uplift are separated
  • The short window to correct a reporting mistake
In preparation
End customer · SAM

The SAM Engagement Response Playbook

Why a SAM engagement is voluntary and sales led, and how declining the initial review to run your own internal assessment first keeps you in control of the data.

  • SAM engagement, self verification, and formal audit compared
  • Why SAM tool output is not audit defense
  • A controlled response sequence for the account team
In preparation
End customer · Penalty

Penalty Mitigation Under the MBSA Clause

What the 5 percent unlicensed use clause actually triggers, and the good faith evidence that moves an auditor away from the top of the range.

  • How the 125 percent acquisition price works in practice
  • Good faith evidence that lowers a finding
  • Framing remediation as partnership, not concession
In preparation

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