When Oracle, SAP, or Microsoft arrives with an audit, you need advisors who have run those audits. Our team includes former Oracle LMS managers and SAP audit directors who know every measurement methodology, inflation tactic, and settlement lever the vendor will use against you.
Software vendor audits are commercial operations disguised as compliance processes. Oracle's LMS team operates on a revenue target. SAP's audit function has settlement quotas. Microsoft's Software Asset Management teams are incented by the dollar value of audit settlements they close. The audit methodology, measurement tools, and negotiation playbook are all designed to maximise the claim — not to determine fair compliance.
We know this because our advisors ran these audit programmes. Our former Oracle LMS managers know which scripts inflate deployment counts in virtualised environments. Our former SAP audit directors know how indirect access claims are constructed and where the methodology can be challenged. That knowledge transforms a typically one-sided process into a genuinely negotiated settlement — at a fraction of the initial claim.
Begin Your Audit DefenceOur audit defence practice covers Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, IBM, Salesforce and all major enterprise software vendors.
Oracle's LMS audit is the most aggressive in the enterprise software industry. LMS measurement scripts routinely over-count processors in virtualised environments, apply incorrect licensing rules to partitioned systems, and claim Java licensing exposure where Oracle's own documentation is ambiguous. Our former LMS managers dispute each count with authoritative technical and contractual evidence.
SAP's indirect access and digital access audits have resulted in some of the largest licence compliance settlements in enterprise software history. We have defended clients against initial SAP claims in excess of $10M, achieving settlements representing less than 5% of the initial demand in complex cases. Our former SAP audit directors know every methodology SAP deploys.
Microsoft's Software Asset Management audit programme uses Microsoft-recommended tooling and interpretation to assess deployment compliance. We conduct independent deployment analysis before the Microsoft team arrives, establish the correct measurement baseline, and challenge any over-counting in the vendor's initial assessment. Microsoft EA and SPLA audits both covered.
IBM's ILMT (IBM License Metric Tool) compliance requirements are technically complex, and IBM's audit team regularly identifies non-compliance with ILMT reporting requirements that trigger sub-capacity licensing disputes. We assess your ILMT deployment, correct any gaps before IBM's measurement begins, and challenge sub-capacity calculations that do not reflect your actual workload.
The best audit outcome is one that never generates a large claim in the first place. Our proactive audit readiness programme assesses your licence position against vendor measurement methodologies, identifies and remediates exposure before it appears in an audit finding, and builds the documentation that proves compliance when a vendor arrives. Clients with audit readiness programmes see 18% better outcomes than reactive defence alone.
After an audit settles, the agreement you sign determines your exposure in the next audit cycle. We negotiate post-audit agreements that include clear measurement rules, agreed deployment baselines, and protections against retrospective claims. Clients who restructure their agreements post-audit see a 65% reduction in the frequency and severity of subsequent audit activity.
Within 24–48 hours of engagement, we conduct a preliminary review of your licence position, deployment data, and the vendor's audit notice. We assess the likely scope and magnitude of the claim, identify the most significant exposure areas, and prepare an initial defence strategy. We also review your contract to determine the limits of the vendor's audit authority — scope, timing, and methodology — and establish the rules of engagement for the audit process before any vendor access is granted.
We conduct our own deployment measurement before the vendor's tools run — using methodology that reflects the correct application of your licence terms, not the vendor's most favourable interpretation. When the vendor produces their audit findings, we compare each claim item against our independent baseline, prepare written rebuttals for every disputed count, and build the evidentiary file that supports our negotiating position. In our experience, between 40% and 70% of Oracle initial claims contain items that can be effectively disputed with proper technical analysis.
Armed with a documented technical challenge to the vendor's claim, we enter settlement negotiations with the commercial credibility that comes from a contested position. We present the disputed items, propose a fair-value settlement, and negotiate the payment structure, licence restructuring, and future audit protection provisions that turn a damaging audit into a manageable commercial event. After settlement, we restructure the agreement to minimise future exposure.
Expert defence across every major enterprise software vendor's audit programme.
A global manufacturer received an SAP audit notice asserting $4.8M in indirect access liability related to their third-party ERP integration. SAP's claim was based on their broadest interpretation of digital access definitions — an interpretation that several courts have subsequently rejected. We conducted a technical analysis of the integration architecture, demonstrated that the access pattern did not constitute indirect access under the specific contract definition, and negotiated a forward-looking digital access agreement at $200,000. Final reduction: 96% of the initial claim.
Read Full Case Study →Everything you need to know about surviving a software vendor audit: your rights, the vendor's tactics, the 7 critical decisions in the first 48 hours, and a step-by-step defence strategy built from 80+ audit engagements. Essential reading for any enterprise facing an Oracle, SAP, or Microsoft audit.
"We received a $4.8M SAP indirect access claim on a Friday afternoon. By Monday we had Atonement Licensing engaged. Eighteen weeks later, we settled for $200,000. They understood the technical and commercial arguments better than SAP's own team."Chief Financial Officer — Global Manufacturing Group
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