Software license audits don’t have to be costly. They don’t even have to be stressful. The key is being prepared—long before the audit letter arrives.
Software license audits are not rare events—they’re built into the lifecycle of enterprise software agreements. And for organizations managing complex engineering applications like MATLAB, ANSYS, or AutoCAD, audits can be especially expensive and disruptive.
According to a 2025 survey by Azul and the ITAM Forum, one in four enterprises now spend over $500,000 annually just managing audit-related non-compliance. That’s half a million dollars going to reactive firefighting, emergency licensing purchases, legal wrangling, and productivity losses.
But here’s the truth: Audits don’t have to cost a dime. Not if you’re prepared.
And that’s exactly where Open iT steps in.
Visibility is the gap—not vendor behavior
Audits feel painful not because they’re inherently unfair, but because they often expose gaps in how organizations track and understand their own software usage. Many enterprises struggle to answer basic questions about their engineering software environments:
- Who’s using which licenses?
- For how long?
- Are there any idle, denied, or underutilized assets?
- Do our actual usage patterns justify our current license model?
Without clear, defensible answers, organizations either overspend to avoid risk or under-license unintentionally, both of which can trigger unwanted scrutiny.
This is where tooling becomes critical—not just to stay compliant, but to create the kind of operational transparency that makes audits manageable and even beneficial.
What Open iT does (that others don’t)
Open iT LicenseAnalyzer gives you deep, accurate, and actionable insights into how your engineering software is used—across users, departments, geographies, and time zones.
Here’s what that means in practice:
- Audit-Ready Reporting: Timestamped, session-level data that aligns with what vendors typically request.
- Idle License Detection: Insight into actual usage—not just check-outs—so you can identify shelfware.
- Cross-Environment Tracking: Consolidated reporting across both on-premises and cloud platforms—a known pain point for 29% of organizations.
- Support for Complex Licensing Models: Floating, token-based, named-user, and hybrid—handled within a single analytics layer.
- Evidence-Based Audit Defense: Verifiable usage records that support compliance conversations with vendors.
SAM managed services that back you up
You don’t have to do it alone.
Open iT’s SAM Managed Services are designed for organizations that want to get proactive—not reactive—about audit readiness. This is especially critical for teams managing complex software environments without dedicated licensing and audit experts.
We partner with your team to:
- Conduct internal software license audits before the vendor calls,
- Build accurate usage models based on real data,
- Develop custom reports to match vendor audit requirements,
- Support audit defense with expert guidance and full documentation, and
- Educate stakeholders on license behavior and compliance risks.
25% of organizations cite configuration complexity as a key barrier to usage tracking—a challenge Open iT addresses by providing both technical visibility and expert support.
The $500k question: Why wait?
Audits don’t announce themselves. They show up in your inbox with a timeline, a deadline, and a request for data you probably don’t have.
And the cost of being unprepared is rising:
- Emergency procurement
- Overpriced true-ups
- Consulting and legal fees
- Internal time drain
- Vendor relationship damage
- Budget uncertainty
With Open iT, you can replace all of that with a single word: readiness.
This means knowing how your software is actually used. It means aligning your contracts with reality. It means owning the data—before someone else asks for it.
With Open iT, you don’t just answer audit questions. You ask better ones.
- Why are we paying for idle licenses?
- Could we switch to a usage-based model and save?
- Are users being denied access during peak hours?
- Can we forecast future needs based on real usage?
This transforms software license auditing from a risk to a competitive advantage.
Don’t feed the audit tax. Stop it.
Audit costs can be avoided—but not with assumptions and spreadsheets. Addressing the root issue—visibility—empowers organizations to take control of software licensing before someone else demands it.
Open iT helps you move beyond audit defense to audit intelligence—transforming a traditionally reactive function into a forward-looking practice.
Auditors love surprises. You won’t. Get ahead of the curve with clean, clear license usage data. Book a demo today.
