Prepare a review of unused software seats
Reconcile paid software licenses with authorized usage and staff records. Prepare seat-level keep, reassign or reclaim proposals, with ownership checks and contract-aware cost estimates.
How this works
Review assigned seats within approved subscriptions. Low activity creates an owner-review candidate, not automatic permission to remove access.
Distinguish access needs from avoidable cost. Unassigning a seat may free capacity without reducing an annual commitment or the next bill.
Before you start
Bounded software inventory
Choose subscriptions, billing entities and review date. Use business license records and only necessary staff-status fields.
Usage and exception rules
Agree product-specific activity signals and windows, including leave, seasonal use, service accounts and untracked work.
Owner and retention responsibilities
Identify business, commercial and access approvers; define required content transfers or retention before removal.
Prepare the inputs
- seat_inventory
- Required
Subscription ID, seat ID, assigned user ID, license type and current allocation.
Separate paid capacity, assignments and free accounts; retain unmatched identities.
- usage_evidence
- Required
Product-specific activity measures with observation and extraction dates.
Verify signal coverage; an empty or unavailable export does not establish inactivity.
- staff_status
- Required
Authorized user-to-staff mapping and current active, departed or leave status.
Use verified IDs and minimal permitted HR facts; exclude private communications.
- commercial_terms
- Required
Unit price, currency, billing term, committed minimum, notice rules and effective change dates.
Verify current terms and amendments. Without them, omit monetary savings.
- owner_exceptions
- Required
Confirmed business need, service dependencies and data ownership or retention requirements.
Resolve exceptions before recommending removal.
Implementation, step by step
Reconcile the purchased and assigned seats
- Freeze scope and timestamps. Match seats to subscriptions, billing entities and verified user IDs.
- Reconcile purchased, assigned and billable counts. Show unassigned paid capacity without misclassifying it as an employee account.
Checkpoint: The inventory reconciles to the subscription and preserves unmatched records.
Evaluate activity using the correct signal
- Apply each product’s agreed activity window and rule. Label incomplete or missing telemetry separately.
- Check whether the metric captures value: meetings, document edits and background automation differ. Avoid one generic inactivity threshold.
Checkpoint: Each inactivity flag names its signal, window, coverage and rule.
Resolve staff and business exceptions
- Reconcile assignments with permitted staff status and owner notes. Separate departures, leave, seasonal needs and service identities.
- Identify owned content, workflows or approvals dependent on removal candidates. Require the applicable transfer or retention plan.
Checkpoint: A proposed reclaim has a verified identity and documented dependencies or a hold reason.
Prepare keep, reassign or reclaim options
- Give evidence and reasons for each disposition. Owners may retain quiet seats with a documented need.
- Separate license reassignment from user deletion or content erasure. Name the exact proposed change and administrator.
Checkpoint: Every candidate has a bounded action, reviewer and explicit exception state.
Estimate the commercial effect
- Calculate against effective contract terms: quantity, price, minimum, notice window and earliest affected bill.
- Distinguish freed capacity, renewal opportunity and immediate reduction. Inactive-seat count multiplied by list price is not realized savings.
Checkpoint: Any amount is reproducible and tied to a contractually available change.
Handoff approved candidates and verify later evidence
- Return candidates for owner and finance decisions. Before separately authorized execution, refresh identity and exceptions.
- Record administrator receipts and verify allocation. Check the applicable invoice before reporting a realized reduction; otherwise keep billing verification pending.
Checkpoint: The ledger distinguishes proposed, approved, applied and billing-verified outcomes.
Decisions along the way
A seat is quiet but its user is on approved leave
Hold the reclaim suggestion for owner review; inactivity alone is insufficient.
A departed user owns important shared material
Require the approved transfer or retention procedure before changing access or deleting content.
The contract commits to a higher minimum than the proposed allocation
Report freed capacity or a future renewal opportunity, with no immediate saving unless the terms support it.
Two records disagree about user identity
Block the affected action and resolve the mapping before approval or execution.
What you will produce
software-seat-review.csv
CSVOne traceable row per allocation or unassigned paid seat block.
Include: subscription_id · seat_id · user_id · activity_window · activity_evidence · staff_status · dependencies · proposed_disposition · hold_reason · reviewer
license-cost-options.csv
CSVReproducible commercial scenarios rather than promised savings.
Include: subscription_id · currency · current_billable_quantity · proposed_quantity · minimum_commitment · unit_price · effective_date · estimated_change · calculation_basis
license-decision-ledger.csv
CSVA state record for approvals, authorized changes and later billing checks.
Include: seat_id · decision · approver · authorized_change · action_receipt · allocation_verified · billing_verified · next_check
Check the result
- Reconcile purchased, assigned and billable counts separately.
- Check every removal candidate against confirmed identity, exceptions and content ownership.
- Recalculate savings under notice periods and minimum commitments.
- Verify allocation changes and billing effects separately.
When something goes wrong
The usage export covers only some devices or actions
Mark coverage incomplete and request owner context before treating silence as inactivity.
A contract renewal changed the price or minimum
Refresh the terms and recalculate affected options; preserve the superseded estimate.
An administrator action has uncertain outcome
Read the current allocation before retrying; avoid repeating an already-completed removal or reassignment.
A worked example
SYNTHETIC EXAMPLE · NOT A REPORTED BUSINESS RESULT
Request
Prepare the monthly review for subscription S5.
Inputs
Synthetic: ten seats cost $20 each per month, with a minimum of eight and permitted next-cycle reductions. Two seats belong to departed staff whose content transfers are confirmed. A third quiet seat belongs to someone on approved leave.
Expected result
Propose two reclaims; hold the leave case. Modeled next-cycle billing is 8 × $20 = $160 versus $200: potentially $40 less. Record neither changes nor savings as completed without allocation and billing evidence.
Run a small pilot
Start small
Review one subscription through a billing cycle, including inactivity, protected exceptions and an unmatched identity.
Record the baseline
Measure review time, owner corrections, contracted capacity and assignments.
Agree success criteria
Require correct identities and retention checks; compare estimates with the first applicable invoice.
Stop or revise
Halt affected actions when identity, business need or retention requirements conflict, or actual pricing cannot support the estimate.
Keep the scope clear
- Limit analysis to authorized business records; this is license stewardship, not covert employee monitoring.
- A review does not authorize account deletion, content destruction, contract cancellation or bypass of the normal offboarding procedure.
- Keep approval and execution within the user’s existing scope; do not remove access simply to meet a savings target.
Check before using
The software owner validates ongoing need and data dependencies; finance checks billable impact before an authorized administrator changes access or licenses.
Business activities
- Manage finances and accounting
- Support and develop employees
FROM A RECIPE TO YOUR WORKFLOW
Bring the company context together.
This workflow needs reliable inputs before it needs a better prompt. Moat8 Vault brings working information into a readable archive for the AI tools you use.
For this recipe: Paid seat assignments and subscription terms · Authorized activity evidence and current staff status · Tool-owner exceptions and retention requirements
Start with one recurring task, agree which sources to use, and review the first result with your team.
Discuss this workflow