Principle 11: The scope, execution and intended outcome of an audit shall be clearly defined in the contract

 

But around a possible audit process, clear agreements must be made between supplier and customer:

• Providers can make very complex licensing models. The customer does not know how to comply. Then comes the audit to find the customer flaws and impose penalties.
• The outcome, objectivity and intended purpose goes often beyond the nature of a factual audit.
• Often there is an additional aim of selling more licences, new products and services or pressuring the customer to a new platform or business model. Audits may not be misused for such ends.
• During an audit, customers should not be held liable for software installed by default, but never used nor activated, for example by a licence key.
• …

Business users are typically not against a contractually defined audit right but good agreements make good friends. Let us therefore conclude with this eleventh and last principle; the scope, execution and intended outcome of an audit shall be clearly defined in the contract.