A FTSE 250 UK financial group settled an eight figure SAP indirect access exposure, retired the legacy ECC estate, and signed a RISE with SAP contract that cut annual SAP cost by thirty percent across the group.
A FTSE 250 UK financial services group entered a hostile SAP audit in 2024 with an indirect access exposure quoted at over twelve million euros. The settlement closed at a fraction of that number through a structured RISE migration.
The full program ran eleven months. The customer retired the legacy ECC estate, replaced indirect access exposure with a RISE digital access entitlement, and signed five protective clauses in a side letter that holds price flat across the term.
Read this alongside the SAP knowledge hub, the SAP services page, the RISE negotiation playbook, and the RISE hidden costs guide.
The customer ran a SAP ECC 6.0 estate across the group. The estate carried twenty four years of customization, a complex indirect access exposure, and a renewal cycle that had drifted out of alignment with the procurement calendar.
SAP issued a formal audit notice in early 2024. The scope cited indirect access exposure across the third party platforms. The opening finding sat at twelve point four million euro.
The customer engaged buyer side advisory inside forty eight hours of the notice. The advisor team had run three prior UK financial services SAP audit settlements at similar scale.
The audit settlement closed in five months. The strategy split the audit data from the commercial conversation and kept the renewal cycle on a separate track.
| Stage | SAP position (EUR M) | Customer counter (EUR M) | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opening finding | 12.4 | 0.0 | Methodology disputed |
| Post methodology | 7.6 | 2.1 | Custom code retired |
| Post DAAP conversion | 4.8 | 2.9 | Documents counted |
| Settlement number | 3.4 | 3.4 | Booked into RISE |
The RISE conversion ran in parallel with the audit settlement. The two tracks closed on the same day with a single signature.
SAP audit settlements convert into RISE credit in most enterprise programs. The customer side discipline is to separate the audit conversation from the RISE conversation and only credit the settlement against the RISE fee in the final close. Mixing the two early loses leverage.
The annual SAP run rate dropped from eight point two million euro to five point seven million euro across the three year term. The full cost picture also includes the audit settlement avoidance.
| Component | Pre RISE (EUR M) | Post RISE (EUR M) | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| License maintenance | 4.1 | 0.0 | Retired |
| SAP cloud and platform | 2.4 | 5.7 | RISE fee |
| Indirect access exposure | 1.7 | 0.0 | Converted to documents |
| Custom code maintenance | 0.0 | 0.0 | Retired |
| Annual total | 8.2 | 5.7 | Down 30% |
The contract close depended on five protective clauses written into a side letter signed alongside the RISE order form.
SAP audit settlements are renewable through RISE conversion. The buyer side discipline is to settle the audit on its own merits, then credit the settlement against the RISE fee in the final close. Mixing the two early in the process gives SAP both uses at once.
The eight step checklist below sets the buyer side starting point for a SAP audit settlement and RISE conversion in regulated industries.
No. Smaller settlements close as cash or license top ups against the ECC contract. Larger settlements frequently convert into a RISE deal because SAP wants the cloud number on its scorecard. The customer decision should rest on the long term TCO, not on the audit pressure in the moment.
The combined program runs eight to fourteen months for mid sized regulated customers. The audit settlement track typically takes four to six months. The RISE negotiation track runs in parallel and closes alongside the audit settlement. Customers who try to compress the program below six months usually leave money and protective clauses on the table.
The document tier benchmark at FTSE 250 scale sits between two hundred and four hundred thousand documents per year. The benchmark moves with the third party platform count, the customer touch volume, and the back office activity. SAP modeled tiers run high. Customers should negotiate against the actual document baseline.
The FCA posture is preserved through three contract clauses. Data residency is anchored to a UK or European data center. Subprocessor controls are documented in the RISE addendum. Regulatory reporting carve outs are confirmed in the side letter. The customer compliance team should sit inside the RISE deal team alongside procurement and finance.
Yes. The audit credit is typically applied against year one RISE fee in most enterprise deals. Some larger settlements split the credit across two years to align the cost relief with the customer budget cycle. The split should sit in the side letter and reference the audit settlement value explicitly. Verbal commitments around the credit do not stand.
Redress runs SAP audit settlement and RISE negotiation inside the Vendor Shield subscription and the Renewal Program. Every engagement is led by a former SAP commercial executive on the buyer side, supported by a structured indirect access baseline, RISE benchmark, side letter library, and a regulated industry compliance overlay where the FCA or equivalent regulator sits in scope.
Redress runs SAP audit and RISE advisory inside the Vendor Shield subscription, the Renewal Program, the Benchmark Program, and the Software Spend Assessment.
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A buyer side reference on RISE Private and Public Edition pricing, Full Use Equivalent right sizing, document tier benchmarks, audit credit application, and the protective side letter clauses that hold the deal through three years.
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Open the Paper →SAP audit settlements are renewable through RISE conversion. The buyer side discipline is to settle the audit on its own merits, then credit the settlement against the RISE fee in the final close. Mixing the two early in the process gives SAP both uses at once.
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