SAP Audit Trends In 2025.

SAP Audit Trends

SAP’s software license audit focus is shifting in 2024 and 2025 as the company adapts its compliance efforts to new usage models and products.

Whereas past audits often centered on named-user counts and classic engines, today SAP’s auditors are scrutinizing indirect/digital access via third-party systems, cloud subscription metrics, and how customers manage licenses during S/4HANA migrations. CIOs and IT leaders should note an increased emphasis on areas like API integrations (counting as SAP usage), SAP HANA memory consumption, and SaaS user counts (SuccessFactors, Ariba).

SAP’s audit and compliance teams (GLAC) are enforcing these metrics more rigorously, leveraging self-declaration data and built-in monitoring in cloud services.

To avoid unbudgeted true-up fees or disruptions, enterprises must proactively prepare by conducting internal license audits, optimizing user classifications, tracking indirect usage, and ensuring the integrity of any self-reported license metrics.

This research note details the key audit trends for 2024/2025 and provides strategic recommendations so CIOs can mitigate compliance risk and approach SAP audit engagements from a position of strength.

Background Context: SAP’s Evolving Audit Posture

SAP’s Right to Audit: All SAP license agreements grant SAP the right to perform audits of customers’ software usage. Traditionally, on-premise customers undergo a yearly self-measurement using SAP’s tools (LAW/USMM) to report license consumption, with SAP reserving the right to initiate a deeper audit if discrepancies or risks are suspected.

The audits validate that the number of licenses purchased matches actual usage across named users and engine metrics. SAP formed a dedicated Global License Auditing and Compliance (GLAC) team in 2018 to standardize this process worldwide, underscoring the importance of compliance in SAP’s revenue protection strategy.

In an audit, if unlicensed use is found, SAP can require customers to purchase additional licenses (often at list price with back maintenance), or even pursue legal remedies in extreme cases.

Evolution of Enforcement: SAP’s audit posture has hardened and adapted over the past decade. High-profile compliance disputes, such as the 2017 Diageo case over indirect use, signaled to customers that SAP would enforce contract terms even for usage via non-SAP systems. In response to customer backlash and rapidly changing technology use-cases, SAP introduced initiatives like “Project Trust” around 2018 to modernize licensing and auditing practices.

This included clearer definitions for indirect access and the new Digital Access licensing model, which charges by documents created via indirect use, to provide an alternative to classic named-user licenses for third-party scenarios.

During the early 2020s, SAP also shifted its approach for cloud products – rather than traditional audits, cloud subscriptions (SAP SuccessFactors, Ariba, S/4HANA Cloud, etc.) are monitored by SAP directly via the cloud platforms. The contract usage limits (such as the number of users, transactions, and storage) are enforced through system controls or periodic usage reviews, especially at renewal time, rather than surprise audits.

At the same time, SAP’s overall enforcement has become more nuanced. During the COVID-19 pandemic, SAP was relatively cautious with audits, but by 2022 and beyond, as economic pressures increased, audit activity surged again.

The company increasingly uses self-declaration forms, asking customers to report the usage of certain products that automated tools can’t measure, as a less confrontational way to gather compliance data.

However, this can still lead to hefty true-up fees if misalignment is found. In 2024, with many customers transitioning to S/4HANA and the cloud, SAP’s audit strategy balances encouraging migration (sometimes offering break-fix solutions via license exchanges) with a firm stance on compliance for existing contracts.

The net result: audits in 2024/2025 are targeting new risk areas, such as indirect access and cloud metrics, and SAP is less tolerant of gray areas, given the years of warnings and programs implemented.

Key SAP Audit Trends for 2024/2025:

The following key trends outline where SAP’s audit and compliance teams are focusing their efforts across both on-premise and cloud environments:

• 🔍 Indirect Access / Digital Access Scrutiny: Indirect use of SAP systems (when non-SAP applications or external users interact with SAP data via interfaces) remains a top audit focus. SAP auditors are reviewing third-party integrations, APIs, robotic process automation bots, and any external portals connected to SAP to identify unlicensed SAP usage. In the past, SAP might charge a full named-user license for each external user or system, leading to giant compliance exposures (as in the Diageo case). To mitigate ambiguity, SAP’s 2018 Digital Access model charges for nine specific document types (e.g., Sales Orders created, Invoices created) when triggered indirectly. By 2024, SAP expects customers to have addressed indirect usage either via named users or by adopting Digital Access licenses. Audit teams are now checking if customers who opted for traditional licensing are inadvertently creating large volumes of documents through external systems without proper licenses. Common scenario: an e-commerce site or CRM system creates sales orders in SAP. SAP will insist that these transactions are licensed, either through sufficient Digital Document licenses or other contract provisions. Suppose a customer enrolled in SAP’s Digital Access Adoption Program (which offered steep discounts to quantify and license these documents) but hasn’t purchased adequate documents. In that case, they are likely to come under scrutiny. In 2024/25, expect SAP to no longer offer leniency on indirect access: audits may count documents generated by interfaces and present a bill for unlicensed ones. CIOs should ensure all third-party connections to SAP are mapped, and decide proactively between named user licensing for those users vs. purchasing Digital Access documents. This area can carry a multi-million-dollar risk if left unmanaged, given the volume of documents that modern integrations can create.
• 🔍 SAP HANA Database Usage Audits: As many SAP ERP customers now run on the SAP HANA database (especially those who migrated ECC to Suite on HANA or implemented S/4HANA on-premise), SAP has increased focus on HANA licensing compliance. HANA is often licensed based on memory capacity – either the peak memory usage or the total memory size of the system tier. SAP’s audit teams have been known to check the peak HANA memory utilization over the last 12 months against the licensed amount. One spike in memory usage above the licensed level can trigger a compliance finding and a backcharge for the excess. In 2024/2025, with data volumes ever-growing, SAP is zeroing in on customers who have outgrown their licensed HANA database size. This includes scenarios where production HANA systems quietly exceeded their licensed GB capacity, or where additional nodes/HA clusters effectively increased memory footprint without additional licenses. The audits also cover HANA Runtime vs. Full-Use licenses – ensuring that if a customer uses HANA for applications beyond the allowed “runtime” scope (e.g., using HANA as a standalone database for custom apps, when licensed only for runtime use with SAP apps), that is flagged. CIOs should expect SAP to request current HANA memory usage statistics or even ask for telemetry to be enabled. Key point: HANA is an expensive asset, and SAP will enforce the letter of the contract (e.g., requiring customers to license the highest memory usage even if it was a one-time peak). To prepare, regularly monitor HANA memory consumption and clean up or archive data to stay within licensed bounds, or budget for an expansion license if growth is inevitable. Do not assume minor hardware upgrades go unnoticed – SAP can and will check system data on memory allocation during audits.
• 🔍 S/4HANA Contract Conversions Under the Audit Lens: As enterprises migrate from SAP ECC (Business Suite 7) to SAP S/4HANA, many have engaged in contract conversion programs. Under an S/4HANA contract conversion, a customer may terminate their old ECC license contract and convert their license value into S/4HANA licenses (often with a credit toward the new suite). SAP typically grants dual-use rights during the transition period, allowing continued use of the legacy ECC system for a limited time while S/4HANA is implemented. In 2024, SAP’s audit and compliance teams are keeping a close eye on these transitions. Their goals are to ensure customers are not “double dipping” (using both ECC and S/4HANA productively beyond the agreed timeline or licensed scope) and that any conditions of the conversion deal are being met. For example, suppose a customer received credit for unused licenses or discounts conditional on completing the migration by a certain date. In that case, auditors may check if the ECC system has indeed been retired (or put into maintenance mode) per the contract. If a customer slipped on their migration plans and is still running ECC productive instances after the contracted period, that usage could be deemed unlicensed. Additionally, suppose the S/4HANA conversion resulted in different metrics (e.g., the new S/4 contract uses Full User Equivalents (FUE) instead of named users). In that case, SAP might audit whether the user counts provided for conversion were accurate. The audit lens on S/4HANA migrations is essentially to prevent misuse of the generous migration rights SAP extended. In 2024/2025, as the ECC end-of-support deadline approaches, SAP could use audits as a nudge: customers still on ECC might face stricter audits to encourage moving to S/4HANA, whereas those who already moved might be audited to validate the new license model usage. CIOs involved in S/4HANA projects should pay attention to any “stay compliant’ clauses in their conversion agreements and maintain detailed records of who is using ECC versus S/4HANA during the migration. Ensure that you decommission old SAP environments on schedule or obtain a written extension
  to avoid compliance issues.
• 🔍 Audits of SAP SuccessFactors User Counts (Concurrent Users and Active Users): SAP SuccessFactors (SF), being a cloud SaaS HR solution, isn’t audited in the traditional on-prem sense (since SAP can directly see usage in the cloud). However, SAP’s compliance checks for SuccessFactors in 2024/25 are targeting whether customers exceed their licensed number of users. Many SuccessFactors contracts are based on the number of employees or users (often sold as named subscriptions per employee or contingent worker). In some cases, especially with older contracts or specific modules like Learning, the licenses may be based on concurrent usage (for example, a maximum number of active users logged in at the same time). SAP’s audit teams (or cloud operations teams) are now actively comparing the customer’s subscription parameters to actual system usage. If a client purchases, say, 5,000 SF of Employee Central users but uploads 5,500 active employee records, the 10% overage will be noted and likely charged at true-up or renewal. Similarly, for any concurrent-user-based entitlements, SAP can analyze peak concurrent sessions over a period to see if the contract has been exceeded (e.g., a Learning module allows 1,000 concurrent learners, but 1,200 participated in a company-wide training simultaneously). Recent trend: SAP is emphasizing periodic compliance certifications – they may ask customers to certify the number of active SF users or provide an official employee count on an annual basis. The focus on SuccessFactors usage integrity ties into SAP’s broader push for “self-service” compliance – customers should manage their user licenses continuously, but SAP will verify at intervals. CIOs should therefore ensure that HR operations or system admins have processes to offboard and deactivate former employees in SuccessFactors promptly (to free those licenses), and that any license type distinctions (like full user vs self-service user) are accurately applied. It’s wise to run your user count reports from the SF Admin Center regularly and compare them against your contract. Any discrepancies should be addressed proactively (either by reducing usage or purchasing additional licenses) rather than hoping SAP won’t notice, because in the cloud, they already have the data.
• 🔍 Ariba Document Consumption Metrics Enforcement: SAP Ariba (procurement and supply chain cloud products) licenses are commonly based on transaction volumes, such as the number of purchasing documents (POs, invoices) processed per year or the total spend value managed through the platform. In 2024/2025, SAP is tightly enforcing these consumption metrics. During contract negotiations a few years ago, customers might have estimated their annual document count and purchased a corresponding tier, with overage charges if they exceeded it. Now, SAP’s audit and compliance function (often through the Ariba account team) is reviewing actual usage statistics from the Ariba system: how many documents were processed, how many suppliers were enabled, and so on. Suppose a customer exceeds the licensed document count (say the contract allows 100,000 invoices per year, and 130,000 are processed due to business growth). In that case, SAP will flag this and likely invoice for the higher usage or require an upgrade to a higher tier. Unlike on-prem software, where customers might hide overuse, in Ariba’s cloud, SAP automatically captures these metrics. The “audit” is more of an enforcement at renewal: SAP will present the usage reports and demand compliance. Newer Ariba contracts often have automatic tiered pricing for additional documents, but older ones may rely on audits to detect overage.
  Additionally, Ariba modules that track users, such as Ariba Sourcing with a specified number of “member” users, are similarly monitored through system reports. The trend is that Ariba’s adoption has matured, and SAP is no longer in “land-and-expand” mode but rather in “monetize actual usage” mode. CIOs should ensure that their procurement teams are familiar with the exact licensing metrics in their Ariba contract and are tracking actual usage internally. If transaction volumes are trending above licensed amounts, it’s better to approach SAP with that insight (and negotiate perhaps a better bulk rate for the higher volume) than to be caught off guard by a compliance claim. It may also be possible to optimize usage – for example, consolidating some documents or eliminating unused suppliers – but realistically, usage tends to increase. Budget owners should plan for increasing Ariba costs if their Business.is processing more transactions than before.
• 🔍 SAP BTP and Custom Development Licensing: SAP’s Business Technology Platform (BTP) – which includes application development, integration services, and database/cloud runtime offerings – is an emerging area of audit attention. BTP is offered in various models (pay-as-you-go cloud credits, subscription bundles, or as part of RISE with SAP contracts) and often involves complex metrics like a number of application instances, memory/CPU for cloud runtime, or a number of connections. As more customers build custom extensions or apps on BTP (or use SAP Integration Suite to link systems), SAP wants to ensure these uses are properly licensed. In 2024/25 audits, SAP is examining if customers who have deployed custom Fiori apps or side-by-side extensions have the required BTP entitlements. For example, a company might build a portal on BTP that is used by thousands of employees – this might technically require a certain type of BTP app service license or user licenses, not just the standard ERP user license. If customers assumed their regular SAP named users cover custom apps, they could be in for a surprise. Another focus is on “shadow” usage of BTP services: sometimes Basis teams activate BTP services (like Cloud Integration trials, or a small SAP HANA instance on BTP for a side project) without formal licenses, and they remain running in productive use. SAP has improved its monitoring of BTP usage through the BTP cockpit and will notify account teams of customers running services without matching subscriptions. We anticipate that audits will cross-check the customer’s BTP consumption (measured in credits or service units) against what they have contracted. If there’s a discrepancy (running more cloud credits than purchased, or using services beyond trial allowances), SAP will require a true-up. Licensing custom development is tricky, and SAP knows it – so their compliance approach combines automated checks with direct questions during audits like: “Have you built any custom applications that access SAP data or extend SAP processes? How are those licensed?” CIOs should inventory all applications developed on SAP platforms (including SAP Cloud Platform/BTP) and ensure they have the appropriate licenses (such as an SAP BTP subscription or runtime licenses included in RISE). Particularly for customers under RISE with SAP contracts, note that certain BTP services might be included, but anything outside the RISE bundle needs separate licensing. The bottom line is to avoid a situation where a successful custom app inadvertently leads to non-compliance. Treat BTP projects with the same license governance as core SAP – estimate the usage (in users, transactions, or resource units) and secure the needed licenses ahead of formal audits.
• 🔍 Emphasis on Self-Declarations and Metric Reporting Integrity: A significant change in SAP’s audit approach is the heavy reliance on customer self-declaration of usage for certain metrics, and thus a keen focus on the integrity of those reports. Not all SAP products can be technically measured by SAP’s audit tools – for instance, engine metrics like “employee count” for an HR module, “orders processed” for a SAP ERP package, or user counts in cloud services are often reported by the customer. Each year, SAP asks many customers to fill out self-declaration forms for specific products (e.g., “How many employees are managed in your SAP Payroll system?” or “How many total SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting users do you have active?”). These declarations are effectively an audit in disguise: SAP uses them to detect overuse without sending an on-site audit team. In 2024/2025, SAP is putting strong emphasis on verifying that the numbers customers self-report are accurate and consistent. If a customer submits significantly lower figures than what SAP believes (or what previous years indicated), it raises a red flag. SAP might then investigate further or initiate a formal audit. We also see SAP cross-checking data across systems – for example, if you self-declare 10,000 employees on SAP Payroll but your SuccessFactors system (also accessible by SAP) has 12,000 active users, the inconsistency could trigger compliance questions. Metric reporting integrity means SAP wants to ensure customers aren’t intentionally or accidentally undercounting. In some cases, SAP has started requiring CEO or CFO sign-off on these self-declaration forms to emphasize their seriousness. From the CIO’s perspective, this trend means internal processes for gathering usage data must be rock-solid and audit-ready. If you are reporting metrics to SAP, double- and triple-check them: ensure that all relevant units of measure as defined in the contract are included, and maintain evidence of how you arrived at the numbers. For instance, keep the system reports or queries that show the count of data records or users, so if SAP challenges the figure, you can defend it. Remember that self-declaration is not a casual task – it can expose you to seven or eight-figure costs if it turns out the declared usage was too low. Thus, treat it with the same rigor as an external audit. In 2024, SAP’s license auditors may even specifically audit the processes behind a customer’s self-declaration (auditing the audit, so to speak). Make sure roles and responsibilities are clear for who compiles those numbers, and consider having an independent internal review or third-party audit of your self-declared metrics before submitting them to SAP. Integrity in metric reporting will preserve trust with SAP and prevent nasty surprises.

Proactive Internal Actions to Mitigate Audit Risk:

To get ahead of SAP auditors and reduce compliance risk, CIOs and IT asset managers should implement several proactive measures.

Key internal actions include:

• Conduct Internal License Audits Ahead of SAP: Don’t wait for SAP to announce an audit – perform your audit at least annually (if not quarterly). This means running SAP’s measurement programs (USMM for user counting, SAP Law or License Administration Workbench for consolidating results) and reviewing the findings internally. Check each system for user counts by license type and the usage of engines and packages. By simulating an audit, you can identify compliance issues (e.g., too many users classified as Professional or engines exceeding licensed metrics) and remediate them before SAP notices. Internal audits should cover both technical data and comparisons of contractual entitlements. It’s useful to involve a cross-functional team (IT, SAP Basis, procurement, finance) to verify the results and decide on fixes (either adjust usage or plan to buy more licenses). This proactive stance means if and when SAP’s official audit occurs, there are no big surprises – you will have already addressed the major gaps.
• Map Indirect Access and Use Simulation Tools: Create a detailed map of all third-party systems, interfaces, and non-SAP applications that interact with your SAP environment. For each integration (whether it’s a Salesforce CRM pulling customer data from SAP, or a shop floor system posting inventory to SAP, or even Excel macros reading SAP data), determine how SAP might view that usage under the license rules. There are tools and SAP-provided notes that can help simulate Digital Access document counts – for instance, SAP has a Digital Access Estimation Tool that analyzes your SAP systems for documents created by external means. Utilize such tools to quantify how many documents (orders, invoices, etc.) your integrations generate. Similarly, some third-party license management solutions can scan SAP logs to identify named users who may be proxies for external systems. By simulating the indirect usage impact, you can determine the most cost-effective licensing approach. It may turn out that you need to purchase a certain number of Digital Access documents or restrict some interfaces. The goal is to avoid discovering a huge indirect usage liability during a formal audit by discovering and addressing it internally first. Also, maintain interface documentation – it helps in discussions with SAP if you can clearly explain which interfaces exist and how they are licensed or blocked (for instance, showing that an external system uses an SAP user ID that is already licensed).
• Validate Engine License Metrics vs. Real Usage: Many SAP products (engines or packages) are licensed based on specific metrics – these could be annual revenue (for SAP Sales & Distribution module in some cases), number of “active employees” (for SAP HR components), number of database records, CPU cores, etc. It is crucial to validate each of these metrics in your environment against what you have licensed. For example, if you have an SAP Payroll engine licensed for up to 5,000 employees, check your HR system to see how many active employee master records are in place, including any contractors or global employees that may be included. If you use SAP Warehouse Management, is there a license metric, such as the number of warehouse bins or delivery lines? Whatever the metric, find a way to measure its current usage in the system. Compare that to the entitlements in your contracts. This exercise should be done periodically, not just at true-up time, because usage can increase over time. Suppose you find metrics exceeding your entitlements (say, you have 5,500 employees in Payroll but only a 5,000-license limit). In that case, you have a few options: clean up the data to remove obsolete records, negotiate a temporary allowance with SAP, or purchase additional capacity. The key is early awareness. Many engine metrics are self-declared, so an internal check ensures you report accurately and can take corrective action. Additionally, consider setting internal thresholds – for example, if the employee count reaches 90% of the licensed number, trigger an alert to review licensing. Staying on top of engine metrics avoids last-minute scrambles or penalties for exceeding them unknowingly.
• Implement Role-Based License Validation for Named Users: A common cause of non-compliance is misclassification of SAP named users – e.g. assigning everyone a “Professional User” license by default (potentially wasting money) or conversely giving someone a cheaper “Limited” user license even though their job activities make them a Professional user under SAP’s definitions (creating compliance risk). To tackle this, conduct a role and authorization-based license analysis. Essentially, examine the transactions and roles each user has in SAP and determine the appropriate license type. SAP provides some guidelines (certain high-level transactions might only be permitted for Professional users, etc.), and third-party tools can automate this analysis by mapping roles to license categories. By validating that each user’s license matches their actual usage, you can reassign licenses more appropriately. For instance, you might discover that 200 users with expensive Professional licenses never do anything beyond display reports – they could be downgraded to an SAP Limited Professional or ESS (Employee Self-Service) license, saving money. Conversely, if some “Warehouse Clerk” users (licensed as a lower category) are found using transactions outside their allowance, you should upgrade them or restrict their access. Regularly performing this alignment (at least annually, and especially before an audit or before your yearly license count submission) will both optimize cost and ensure compliance. It’s wise to integrate this with your user provisioning process too: define which roles correspond to which license type so new users get the correct classification from the start. By having a clean license assignment across your user base, you’ll have a defensible position if SAP audits user records – you can demonstrate a rational, well-managed approach rather than a messy or ad-hoc allocation.
• Prepare Defensible Data Sets for SaaS Usage: For cloud services like SuccessFactors, Ariba, Concur, and SAP Analytics Cloud, among others, your organization should maintain copies of usage data and logs to reconcile against SAP’s figures. Even though SAP can measure your usage, you want to be able to verify and defend that data. For SuccessFactors, for example, regularly export user lists and statuses – keep records of how many users were active each month, how many were added/terminated, etc. If there are contractors or seasonal workers who inflate the count temporarily, document those as well (especially if your contract has any allowances or specific definitions of “users”). For Ariba, you might download reports of documents processed or spend throughput. If SAP comes back claiming you exceeded a metric, you’ll need detailed records to either validate their claim or challenge it (maybe some documents should not count per contract definitions, or were test documents, etc.). It’s also important to clarify any exclusions or special terms in your SaaS contracts and ensure your data tracking accounts for them. For instance, if your Ariba license counts unique suppliers or only approved invoices, ensure that your data distinguishes between these two types. Preparing these data sets is not just about having numbers on hand; it’s about being able to tell the story of your usage in a way that aligns with the contract. Many companies find it useful to assign an owner for each major SaaS metric – for example, the procurement ops team owns tracking Ariba document counts, and the HRIS team owns tracking SF user counts – so that there is accountability and regular reporting internally. When renewal or audit time comes, this preparation will allow you to engage SAP confidently, armed with the same (or better) data than they have. In case of any disputes, you can provide the evidence for why, say, certain users shouldn’t be counted (perhaps they are test accounts or system integration accounts that your contract says are excluded). In summary, treat your cloud usage data as audit artifacts that require disciplined management. This will greatly reduce the risk of unwarranted compliance charges and give you a negotiating advantage.

Recommendations: Preparing for 2025 SAP Audits

To proactively manage these trends, CIOs and IT leaders should take a strategic approach to SAP license compliance.

Below are prioritized steps to prepare for upcoming SAP audit engagements:

1. Establish a License Compliance Task Force: Form a dedicated team or working group that meets regularly, such as quarterly, to review SAP licensing and usage. Include stakeholders from IT (SAP Basis/Security), Procurement/Vendor Management, Software Asset Management, and business units heavily using SAP. This team’s mandate is to ensure continuous compliance and readiness for audits. Leadership from the CIO or IT Director level should sponsor it, underscoring the importance across the organization.
2. Baseline Your Entitlements and Usage: Conduct a comprehensive baseline assessment immediately. Gather all SAP contracts, order forms, and metrics definitions – build a clear inventory of what you are entitled to (how many of each user type, which engines and their metric limits, cloud subscriptions, and their quantities). In parallel, extract current usage data from SAP systems: number of users in each category, last 12 months of engine metric values, digital document counts (if available), cloud usage reports, etc. This baseline will highlight any obvious gaps (for example, you might discover you are using 120% of a licensed metric – a critical risk to address). Document this baseline thoroughly, as it will guide all subsequent actions.
3. Remediate High-Risk Compliance Gaps: Prioritize any issues found in the baseline for remediation before SAP’s audit. High-risk gaps are those that would incur significant fees if audited today – e.g., thousands of unlicensed indirect documents, or a major HANA memory overage. Develop a remediation plan for each: this could mean purchasing additional licenses (if so, better to negotiate proactively than under audit pressure), reallocating or reducing usage (archiving data to reduce HANA footprint, cleaning up user accounts), or adjusting configurations (perhaps disabling an integration until it’s licensed properly). Where buying additional licenses is necessary, engage SAP early – you might secure a better discount or a deal (such as converting to a different license model) when it’s not yet an official audit scenario for issues that cannot be fully solved immediately (say you know you are 10% over on some metric but a purchase is pending budget approval), at least document the issue and your mitigation plan. That way, if audited, you can demonstrate awareness and progress, which may earn some leniency or time.
4. Leverage Expert Tools and Services: Consider investing in specialist license management software and/or third-party audit advisory services. There are tools in the market that can automate user license optimization, continuously track engine metrics, and simulate indirect usage costs. These can greatly reduce the manual effort and catch subtleties that human checks might miss. Similarly, consultancies (or even SAP’s own License Advisory services) can provide an outside perspective, benchmarking your license deployment and suggesting improvements. In a CIO-level strategy, the cost of such tools or services often pays for itself by identifying unnecessary licenses to drop or compliance issues to fix before they become multi-million dollar problems. Especially heading into 2025, when SAP ECC customers face decisions about S/4HANA, having a clean and optimized license estate will simplify migration licensing discussions with SAP. Allocate budget and resources for these tools/services as a preventive measure.
5. Educate and Communicate Internally: Ensure that your IT staff and relevant business users are educated on SAP licensing rules and the implications of non-compliance. Often, unintentional compliance issues arise because someone wasn’t aware of the rules. For instance, a developer might create a new interface to SAP, not realizing it triggers indirect usage licensing, or HR might keep terminated employees active in SuccessFactors for convenience. Conduct briefings or training sessions on the “dos and don’ts” of SAP usage. Additionally, communicate the importance of audit readiness to executive sponsors – the CFO and others should know that a big audit exposure is a financial risk. With that top-level awareness, you’re more likely to get support (and funding) for the compliance initiatives. A culture of compliance can save a lot of pain; people will be more cautious and consult the license team before making system changes that have a licensing impact.
6. Negotiate Audit Framework and Protections: As a strategic step, consider negotiating with SAP on audit terms before an audit happens. During your next contract renewal or new purchase, consider including clauses that provide clearer audit terms or more customer-friendly terms. For example, some customers negotiate for a 90-day notice period before any on-site audit, or the right to remediate findings within 60 days before SAP issues an invoice. While SAP may not always agree to modifications of standard audit rights, it’s worth attempting if you have leverage (such as a big S/4HANA deal signing). At a minimum, ensure you understand the audit clause in your agreements – know how much time you have to respond, and if there are any specific processes defined. Internally, have a game plan: if an audit letter arrives, who is the point person to liaise with SAP, who will collect data, and who will handle negotiations. By planning, you can respond calmly and deliberately, rather than scrambling. Also, if you’ve discovered minor compliance issues that you plan to resolve, keep records of those communications and actions – they might be useful in demonstrating good faith compliance if needed.
7. Continuous Compliance & Governance: Make SAP license compliance an ongoing governance topic, not a once-a-year fire drill. Incorporate license checks into change management: for any new project or system change involving SAP, ask “does this have licensing implications?” For instance, if you adopt a new third-party software that integrates with SAP, run it by the license governance team first. Maintain an authoritative record (a “license bible”) of your entitlements and current usage, updating it with any changes (new license purchases, retired licenses, etc.). As your business evolves (through mergers, expansions, or new SAP modules), update your compliance plan accordingly. Essentially, treat SAP licenses as you would a financial asset that needs to be managed, because they are. This continuous approach will not only prepare you for audits at any time, but it will likely save costs by avoiding over-purchasing and ensuring you get full value from what you have.

By following these steps, organizations will be well-positioned to handle SAP’s evolving audit tactics in 2024 and 2025. A proactive, informed stance transforms audits from dreaded events into manageable exercises.

In addition, a clean licensing house gives CIOs more freedom to pursue new SAP innovations (like moving to the cloud or adopting new modules) without the baggage of compliance debt. In summary, know your licenses, know your usage, and never stop reconciling the two. With that discipline, even as SAP’s audit focus shifts, your company will remain in control and audit-ready.