SAP maintenance optimisation is not a one-time project — it is a continuous commercial discipline. The 22 checks below are drawn from over 300 SAP advisory engagements. Each item includes an expert note on the most common failure mode we encounter in practice. Work through this list before any SAP renewal conversation, and before any decision on S/4HANA migration, RISE adoption, or third-party support.

Category 1 — Licence Baseline & Calculation Accuracy
01 Establish your Net Annual Licence Amount (NALA) as the maintenance calculation base

Your SAP maintenance fee is calculated as a percentage of your net licence value — the discounted price you paid, not the list price. Obtain and verify your NALA figure from your SAP contract and recent invoices. Ensure all subsequent calculations use this verified base.

Expert Note In practice, we find that approximately 30% of enterprises cannot accurately state their own NALA without requesting documentation from SAP. Without a verified NALA, every other optimisation calculation is built on an assumption. Request the Licence Value Statement from your SAP Account Executive before any negotiation.
02 Confirm maintenance is calculated on the discounted price — not SAP list price

SAP's standard terms require maintenance to be applied to the net (discounted) licence value. Errors do occur. If your organisation negotiated a 40–60% discount on licences, verify that the 22% maintenance rate is applied to the reduced figure, not to the full list price.

Expert Note We have identified calculation base errors in approximately 8% of the SAP contracts we review. On a £10 million licence estate at a 50% discount, paying maintenance on list rather than net inflates the annual maintenance bill by £1.1 million. This error is rarely flagged by SAP proactively.
03 Run USMM and extract named user counts by licence type

SAP's User and System Measurement Management (USMM) transaction generates a complete named user report by licence category. Run this report in every SAP system and consolidate results using the Licence Administration Workbench (LAW). This is your baseline for any licence reclassification or shelfware removal exercise.

Expert Note USMM data is also what SAP auditors use during a licence review. Running it proactively means you see what SAP sees before any formal engagement. Organisations that have never run USMM are consistently surprised by the gap between contractual licence positions and actual system data.
04 Remove terminated employees, contractors, and dormant accounts from the named user count

Named user licences are assigned to individuals, not to roles. Former employees and contractors whose accounts are inactive but not formally removed from the SAP system continue to consume licences and generate maintenance costs. Run an active directory comparison against SAP named users quarterly.

Expert Note In organisations with high staff turnover or frequent M&A activity, we typically find 5–12% of named user licences assigned to individuals who are no longer employed. On a 2,000-user Professional licence estate, that represents 100–240 licences — roughly £200,000 to £500,000 in annual maintenance on licences with zero business value.
Category 2 — Shelfware Elimination & User Reclassification
05 Identify module-level shelfware — licences paid but with zero or sub-10% active usage

Cross-reference your contracted module scope against actual usage logs. Any module with fewer than 10% of licensed users actively accessing it in the past 12 months should be flagged for termination at renewal. In most enterprise SAP estates, 15–35% of total licence value is attributable to unused or barely-used modules.

Expert Note SAP resists licence scope reductions at renewal because every £100,000 of removed software saves you £22,000 in annual maintenance. The strongest negotiation position is a usage data package from USMM combined with a formal written reduction request submitted 90 days before contract expiry.
06 Reclassify users from Professional to Limited Professional where usage data supports it

SAP Professional licences are the most expensive user type. Many users classified as Professional in older contracts access only a narrow functional scope (viewing reports, approving workflows) that qualifies for the significantly cheaper Limited Professional or Employee licence tier. Review the SAP Licence Type description documents against actual usage patterns.

Expert Note User reclassification is the single highest-return optimisation in most SAP estates. We routinely identify 20–30% of Professional users who qualify for a lower tier, yielding annual maintenance savings of £400,000 to £1.5 million for mid-to-large enterprises without any reduction in business capability.
07 Audit enhancement packages and add-on modules for active deployment

Review all EHP (Enhancement Packages) and industry add-ons included in your licence scope. Modules acquired during a historical consolidation, an M&A transaction, or an over-scoped initial sale are frequently maintained at full cost with no active deployment. Each confirmed non-deployed add-on is a direct reduction candidate.

Expert Note Industry solution add-ons (IS-U for utilities, IS-H for healthcare, IS-Retail) are particularly prone to shelfware. We have seen organisations paying maintenance on industry solutions from a prior acquisition that never completed its SAP integration — sometimes for five or more years after the business rationale disappeared.
08 Check for duplicate licence ownership across business units post-M&A

Following mergers and acquisitions, it is common for multiple SAP contracts to exist across the combined entity — each carrying its own maintenance obligation. Consolidating licences into a single group enterprise agreement can eliminate duplicate maintenance payments and establish stronger negotiating leverage for future renewals.

Expert Note SAP Group Agreements require active negotiation — SAP does not automatically consolidate contracts post-M&A. However, the leverage is significant. Organisations that consolidate typically achieve not just maintenance savings but also an improved overall discount position for future purchases.

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Category 3 — Support Tier & Rate Negotiation
09 Assess eligibility for PSLE (Product Support for Large Enterprises) at 17% vs the standard 22%

PSLE is available to SAP's largest customers as an alternative to Enterprise Support, priced at approximately 17% of NALA. On a £20 million licence estate, the difference between 22% and 17% is £1 million annually. Eligibility is based on total SAP investment and commercial relationship, and must be formally requested — SAP does not proactively offer PSLE.

Expert Note PSLE comes with service trade-offs: reduced SLA commitments, no guaranteed initial response time for certain incident types, and limited access to SAP's advisory centre. For organisations with a capable internal SAP team or a managed services partner, these reductions are often negligible. PSLE eligibility should be evaluated at every renewal.
10 Negotiate a multi-year maintenance rate lock or escalation cap

SAP's standard maintenance rate is 22%, but escalation clauses in contracts can allow SAP to increase the maintenance base as the licence estate grows. Negotiate an explicit rate lock for the contract term (typically 3–5 years) and a cap on annual maintenance base increases, particularly before S/4HANA or RISE migration activity increases your NALA.

Expert Note We have seen contracts where uncapped maintenance base growth, driven by new cloud subscriptions being added to the maintenance calculation, increased annual maintenance costs by 15–25% within two years of signing. A clause limiting maintenance base growth to agreed categories of licences provides significant multi-year protection.
11 Review whether Standard Support is a viable alternative to Enterprise Support for any system

SAP offers Standard Support at a lower rate than Enterprise Support for certain deployments. While Enterprise Support is standard for most ECC and S/4HANA implementations, evaluate whether any peripheral or legacy SAP systems qualify for the lower-cost tier based on business criticality and incident history.

Expert Note Standard Support eliminates access to SAP's premium support features including the Expert Guided Implementations and Mission Critical Support service. For a legacy SAP HR system being decommissioned within 24 months, the support tier downgrade is often the most rational commercial decision available.
Category 4 — Third-Party Support Evaluation
12 Model the ROI of third-party support (Rimini Street, Spinnaker) for stable, non-strategic SAP systems

Third-party support providers typically charge 40–50% of SAP's maintenance rate, delivering immediate savings of 50% on the supported systems. Rimini Street and Spinnaker Support are the two principal providers. The business case is strongest for ECC systems not scheduled for S/4HANA migration within 24 months, where SAP's new feature roadmap has limited relevance.

Expert Note The primary risk of third-party support is losing access to SAP security patches and regulatory updates (tax, legal, payroll). Evaluate this risk against actual regulatory exposure in your jurisdiction. For non-ERP workloads (legacy BI, portal, non-critical integrations), the risk is minimal and the savings are substantial.
13 Use third-party support as a negotiation lever even if you do not intend to switch

A credible, documented third-party support evaluation — including a formal proposal from Rimini Street or Spinnaker — materially strengthens your position in SAP renewal negotiations. SAP account teams are trained to compete against third-party support proposals, and the presence of a credible alternative routinely generates concessions on rate, NALA, or contract flexibility.

Expert Note Even organisations with no genuine intention to switch to third-party support have achieved 3–6 percentage point reductions in maintenance rate by presenting a credible competitive proposal during negotiations. The leverage exists regardless of intent — the key is obtaining a formal written proposal before entering renewal discussions.
Category 5 — Indirect Access & Digital Licensing Compliance
14 Inventory all third-party systems that read from or write to SAP — indirect access exposure

Any non-SAP system that accesses SAP data (CRM, WMS, MES, e-commerce, RPA bots, middleware) may create indirect access licensing obligations. A landmark UK court case resulted in a £54 million charge for indirect access via Salesforce. Map every integration point and classify it against SAP's current Indirect Access and Digital Access licensing framework.

Expert Note The most common blind spot is RPA (Robotic Process Automation) deployments. SAP treats automated document creation by bots (purchase orders, invoices, delivery notes) as digital access events, each requiring a digital licence. Organisations deploying UiPath, Automation Anywhere, or Blue Prism against SAP without digital licences frequently carry unquantified compliance exposure.
15 Assess Digital Access Adoption Program (DAAP) eligibility for legacy indirect access remediation

SAP's Digital Access Adoption Program offers organisations the opportunity to regularise historical indirect access usage and convert to a document-based Digital Access licence model, with SAP forgiving past unlicensed usage. DAAP provides a defined and predictable cost structure that replaces open-ended compliance exposure. Eligibility and pricing must be negotiated before SAP initiates a formal licence audit.

Expert Note DAAP is best used proactively. Once SAP commences a formal licence measurement, DAAP terms become less favourable and negotiation leverage diminishes. Organisations with known indirect access exposure should approach DAAP on their own timeline, not SAP's — the difference in outcome can be millions of pounds.
Category 6 — ECC End-of-Maintenance & Migration Cost Planning
16 Confirm your ECC version and the exact mainstream maintenance end date

SAP ECC 6 EHP 0–5 mainstream maintenance ends 31 December 2025. ECC 6 EHP 6–8 ends 31 December 2027. These dates are not interchangeable. Know exactly which EHP version your estate runs, as the incorrect assumption creates either unnecessary urgency (EHP 6–8 customers) or dangerous complacency (EHP 0–5 customers already past mainstream maintenance).

Expert Note SAP's extension maintenance offering for post-2027 ECC — available through 2030 for EHP 6–8 — carries an additional charge of approximately 2 percentage points above the standard rate. Factor this cost into any S/4HANA migration business case as the true cost of delay.
17 Align your maintenance renewal window with ECC EOL to maximise negotiating leverage

If your SAP maintenance renewal falls within 18–24 months of the December 2027 ECC end-of-maintenance date, this is the single most powerful negotiation window available to you. SAP needs to secure your S/4HANA migration commitment before the deadline — you need either a migration pathway or cost certainty. The intersection of these two needs creates significant commercial leverage.

Expert Note Organisations that align their renewal to the 2027 deadline window and arrive with a structured migration timeline (even a preliminary one) consistently achieve the best commercial outcomes. SAP has offered substantial licence credits, reduced S/4HANA conversion fees, and extended ECC maintenance at no increase to incentivise commitment during this window.
18 Run a 5–7 year TCO comparison between S/4HANA on-premise, RISE with SAP, and ECC extended maintenance

SAP's RISE with SAP subscription model bundles S/4HANA Cloud, infrastructure, and support into a single per-FUE monthly fee. Independent analysis consistently shows RISE costs 50–150% more than traditional on-premise licensing over a 5-year horizon once the full maintenance calculation is embedded in the subscription. A structured 5–7 year TCO model is essential before committing to RISE.

Expert Note RISE pricing is deliberately opaque. The per-FUE quote does not include implementation costs (typically £3–8 million for mid-market, £10–30 million for large enterprise), data migration, integration rework, or the exit penalty if you wish to move from RISE to a different model post-contract. Model the full OPEX trajectory before signing.
Category 7 — Contract Governance & Commercial Controls
19 Verify SAP Cloud Platform (BTP) and cloud product licences are not included in the maintenance base

SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) and SAP cloud subscriptions (SuccessFactors, Ariba, Concur) are subscription products with their own support model embedded in the subscription price. These should not appear in your on-premise maintenance calculation base. Contracts structured after SAP acquisitions or RISE transitions sometimes carry incorrect maintenance base calculations that double-count cloud subscription values.

Expert Note BTP consumption licences in particular are frequently misclassified. We have reviewed contracts where BTP credits purchased for a development project were subsequently added to the permanent licence base, increasing the maintenance bill by £80,000–£250,000 annually on a value that should be excluded entirely.
20 Document and track SAP Enterprise Support value credits and co-innovation entitlements

SAP Enterprise Support includes value credits — redeemable credits against SAP consulting, training, and SAP MaxAttention services. These credits are often unclaimed because internal teams are unaware of their existence or the redemption process. Systematically claim all entitlements: they are pre-paid assets within your maintenance agreement.

Expert Note Across the engagements where we have reviewed Enterprise Support entitlement utilisation, the average unclaimed credits equate to 8–12% of total annual maintenance spend. For a £1 million annual maintenance commitment, that represents £80,000–£120,000 in pre-paid services left unclaimed. Assign a named owner to Enterprise Support entitlement management.
21 Establish a 90-day pre-renewal preparation window with a formal internal review process

SAP contracts renew on fixed dates. Without a formal internal process to begin preparation 90 days before renewal, organisations default to SAP's proposed terms — which are optimised for SAP's revenue, not your cost. Assign a cross-functional team (IT, Procurement, Finance, Legal, SAP CoE) and a documented negotiation brief before any SAP conversation begins.

Expert Note The most common reason enterprises fail to achieve savings at SAP renewal is not that savings were unavailable — it is that the internal preparation started too late. SAP account teams are trained to move quickly once a renewal window opens. A customer who arrives with a prepared position, usage data, and competitive alternatives consistently outperforms one who reacts to SAP's opening proposal.
22 Engage an independent SAP licensing advisor before any renewal or migration commitment

SAP's account team is commercially motivated to maximise contract value. Internal IT and procurement teams typically lack the current market intelligence on SAP pricing norms, discount levels, and contract clause benchmarks needed to negotiate optimally. An independent advisor with no SAP commercial relationship brings an objective benchmark — and typically delivers savings that exceed the advisory cost by a factor of five to fifteen.

Expert Note The single most common feedback from organisations after completing a Redress Compliance SAP advisory engagement is: "We had no idea the discount we accepted was 20–30 points below market." SAP maintains information asymmetry as a commercial strategy. Addressing that asymmetry with independent advice is the highest-ROI action available before any SAP renewal.
"The typical SAP maintenance optimisation exercise recovers 20–40% of annual spend without any reduction in business capability. The barriers are information asymmetry and internal preparation — not SAP commercial inflexibility."

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