#licence tracking

##Two numbers, one answer

Most licence trouble is not fraud, it is arithmetic nobody did. A team buys twelve seats, grows to fifteen, and finds out at renewal. Or buys twenty-five, shrinks to sixteen, and pays for nine empty chairs for three years.

Those two lines are the whole feature. Everything below is how they get to be accurate.

##Recording a licence

A licence is entered once with what the invoice says: product, seat count, cost, term, renewal date and whether it renews automatically. That last field matters more than people expect, because an auto-renewal you forgot is a cost you did not choose.

product        Endpoint protection
vendor         (your reseller)
seats          12
cost           $ 38.00 / seat / year
term           annual
renews         02 Mar 2027
auto-renew     yes
match on       package name, as reported by the agent

# saved. matching begins on the next agent cycle.

##How installs are matched

The agent already reports installed packages per device. A licence is linked to one or more package names, and the install count is simply the number of devices reporting a match.

• Package name match is the default and handles most desktop software.
• Seat assignment is read directly for Microsoft 365, so a licence assigned to a leaver still counts as consumed even if nothing is installed - which is exactly the seat you want to reclaim.
• Manual assignment covers everything else: per-user subscriptions, web tools, anything that never lands on a disk.

###Devices that count twice

A rebuilt machine that kept its serial is the same asset. A rebuilt machine with a new serial is a new one, and the old record will keep consuming a seat until it is retired. Devices offline for more than 30 days are listed separately in the licence view for exactly this reason.

##Renewals

A notice goes out 30 days before a renewal date, again at 7 days, and the licence is flagged on the board throughout. The notice carries the numbers you need for the decision rather than just the date.

Microsoft 365 Business Standard renews 14 Oct 2026 · auto-renew on

seats paid          25
seats assigned      25
assigned to leavers 2        # arjun.m, departed 18 Aug
devices reporting   23
annual cost         $ 4,500

# reclaiming the two leaver seats before renewal saves $ 360 / year

Perpetual licences have no renewal but still carry a support or maintenance end date, which is tracked the same way. A perpetual licence out of maintenance is not broken, but it is not getting security updates either.

##Unused seats

A seat is flagged unused when it has been paid for and unmatched for two consecutive cycles - currently 30 days - so a staff member on leave does not trigger a false alarm.

The flag names the seat where it can: the leaver who still holds a Microsoft 365 licence, the five Acrobat seats bought for a project that finished. It does not cancel anything. Removing a seat is a conversation with a reseller, and it is yours to have.

##If you are audited

A vendor audit asks one thing: prove your install count against your entitlement on a given date. The licence record keeps the entitlement, the invoice reference you entered, and the agent-reported install count with its own history, which means the answer is a report rather than a fortnight.

Export includes the per-device install list behind each count. That is the part auditors actually want, and it is the part a spreadsheet never has.

##Limits