Licence costs and ROI

Purpose

ROI depends on clean cost data. Each application or licence should have a monthly price, currency, customer, source, validity date and contract context.

Practical workflow

Import or enter costs, collect real usage, review candidates, exclude business exceptions, calculate monthly and annual savings, then document the customer decision.

Controls and validation

Distinguish potential, actionable and realised savings. Annual commitments, bundles, discounts and minimum seats can change what is actually recoverable.

Security and compliance

Cost exports are customer-scoped data. They must follow RBAC and should not include secrets or unrelated customer information.

Common mistakes

The frequent mistake is using catalogue prices as if they were the customer invoice. Always label assumptions before presenting ROI.

Current license view

License management is split into four views: License Summary for reporting, Microsoft 365 for Graph SKUs, Azure for future Azure cost reads and Manual for licenses entered or imported outside Graph. The Microsoft 365 sync button lives in License Summary to make clear that the read feeds global reporting.

In Microsoft 365, administrators can hide columns, set billing model, enter cost, keep the SKU as technical information and display the full name on hover when the label is truncated. A license can be marked as ignored for reporting: it stays visible in inventory but no longer contributes to totals, charts or projections. This is useful for Power BI Free / POWER_BI_STANDARD or very large technical allocations.