SAP Licensing

The technology landscape and how one consumes and uses SAP software has undergone dramatic changes. Not only are SAP users using the digital core, which includes SAP ERP, SAP S/4HANA, and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, but your business partners, customers, third-party applications, loT devices, automated systems, and robotic process automation (RPA) or bots are also using the digital core.

Indirect or digital access is when people or things use the digital core without logging into the system directly. It occurs when humans or any device or system indirectly use the digital core through non-SAP intermediary software, such as a front end, a custom solution, or any other third party application. It also occurs when non-human devices, bots, automated systems, and so on use the digital core in any way.

Historically, any use of the digital core - either direct or indirect - was licensed through SAP Named User licences and/or software on a user metric. The new pricing approach differentiates between direct human access (pricing continues to be user-based) and indirect digital access (pricing is based on the number of transactions, called documents, processed within the digital core).

SAP believes that every customer has a different approach to adopting cloud innovations based on unique business requirements. The cloud extension model supports you in transitioning your landscapes from an on-premise to a cloud deployment strategy.

Based on your existing investments in SAP software, you can decide to reallocate elements of your installed on-premise solutions to the respective public cloud or private cloud solutions from SAP, replacing on-premise licence and maintenance with public cloud or private cloud subscriptions. Such transactions assume an expanded investment with eligible cloud solutions from SAP.

To reduce the risk of an unexpected licence gap, SAP encourages clients to monitor their licence compliance themselves. At G3G, when we are your SAP Partner and Value Added Reseller (VAR), we take on this responsibility and monitor and report on the usage, using SAP’s provided Licence Audit Tools.

SAP software contains audit tools that assist in generating the data necessary to measure the usage of the software. Certain tools that SAP licence auditors use are available to you as part of their traditional SAP ERP application, for example, the License Audit Workbench Tool used for basic audits. You may use these tools internally at any time to monitor your licence consumption. Audit tools cannot determine if you fall within the scope specified by your software licence. Measuring the usage of SAP software is something you are obliged to do according to the SAP licence contract.

Some clients who purchase licences or subscriptions from SAP may subsequently need to change their user numbers due to perhaps internal restructuring, divestiture of parts of the business, or any number of other reasons.  

If you have purchased a subscription licence it is very easy to increase the number of users by adding users to the subscription period which will normally be aligned to the main agreement period. If there is a requirement to reduce the number of users, you will need to wait until the subscription period has ended to reduce the numbers, ensuring that this is done before any auto-renewal within the agreement.

If you have purchased a perpetual licence, again it is very easy to purchase additional users. You can ask us, as your VAR, and we will be able to provide a quotation and make the arrangements with SAP. You will sign a new exhibit to your contract and your annual maintenance will be calculated on your original purchase and any subsequent exhibits.

It is again a little more complicated to reduce your numbers and the consequent maintenance.  All cancellations must be received by SAP by 30 September for the maintenance not to be charged for the following full year. Cancellations can only be cancelled with the most recent exhibit first. If for example, a customer has their original contract and 5 exhibits from additional purchases, then exhibit 5 would have to be cancelled, then exhibit 4 and so on. This is not normally an issue unless the item to be cancelled is only on the original contract and there is not a need to cancel items on the subsequent exhibits.