A consumer-goods group sat between two engine-metric measurements that contradicted each other. The reconciliation work removed $6.3M of claimed exposure and rewrote the engine clause for the next renewal.
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The audit notification arrived eleven months after a prior self-declaration that had reported engine consumption substantially below the levels SAP’s measurement now claimed. The two numbers did not reconcile, and neither side could explain the gap without further work.
Internal SAM had run the self-declaration on the configured engine-measurement scripts. SAP’s measurement had been taken via direct extracts from the engine tables using a different scope and a different time window. The CFO had been briefed on the lower number and was unprepared for the gap.
We were engaged on a reconciliation brief: identify the source of the gap, validate which measurement was correct, and prepare a defensible position for the audit response. The engagement was specifically not a settlement negotiation — the priority was to know what was actually owed.
SAP’s engine-claim opening landed at $9.1M, split across three engines. The split itself was revealing: it pointed to where the measurement methodology differed from the self-declaration methodology.
Three tactics, one per engine. Each tactic was a methodology reset, supported by SAP’s own measurement guidance, and presented as a reconciliation rather than a refusal.
We rebuilt the FI document-line count on the posted-document scope only, excluding reversals and parked documents. The reversal exclusion alone removed 18% of the document count. The parked-document exclusion removed a further 6%. The recalculated FI engine landed at $1.5M against the $4.8M opening.
The MM purchasing-volume measurement was rebuilt to exclude blocked and deleted purchase-order lines, in line with SAP’s published measurement guidance for the engine. The exclusion removed 31% of the volume count. The recalculated MM engine landed at $0.8M against the $2.4M opening.
The BW data-volume measurement was rebuilt to exclude the staging area, retaining only the active warehouse data volume. The staging area held three months of rolling staging data that was not licensable under the engine definition. The recalculated BW engine landed at $0.5M against the $1.9M opening.
The engine claim closed at $2.8M against the $9.1M opening. The reconciliation work was accepted by SAP as the basis for settlement, with no protracted negotiation on the methodology resets. SAP’s own published measurement guidance supported each of the three resets.
The settlement letter included one critical contract amendment: an engine-measurement clause clarifying scope for each of the three engines, with explicit exclusions for reversal documents (FI), blocked and deleted purchase orders (MM), and staging-area data volume (BW). The amendment removed the recurring exposure on all three engines for the remaining contract term.
The self-declaration process was rewritten internally to incorporate the same scope rules. The next two self-declarations matched SAP’s subsequent measurements within two percent on each engine. The reconciliation gap that had triggered the audit was closed permanently.
The reconciliation work was performed against SAP’s own published engine-measurement guidance, not against the script outputs from the self-declaration. The FI document-line scope was rebuilt by joining the document-header table against the document-status table and excluding reversed and parked entries at the join. The MM purchasing-volume scope was rebuilt by joining the PO-header table against the PO-line table and excluding blocked and deleted lines. The BW data-volume scope was rebuilt by joining the warehouse-active table against the staging-active table and excluding staging entries. The full methodology was documented and submitted to SAP alongside the engine-claim response.
We had two numbers that did not match, and we did not know which one was right. The advisor showed us neither was right. The reconciliation work gave us a third number we could actually defend.
Self-measurement preparation, USMM scope-and-scripts review, and the reconciliation work that closes the gap to SAP’s subsequent measurement.
Read the brief →A pre-audit examination of named users, engine measurements, and indirect-access pathways. We surface the exposure before SAP does, and we quantify the remediation cost.
Read the brief →How the FI, MM, and BW engines actually count. The scope rules and the contractual exclusions.
Where the engine-measurement scripts disagree with the configured engine. The reconciliation pattern.
How a manufacturer reset an FI engine measurement and removed $2.1M from a pending claim.
Further reading: related white paper · cluster pillar · topic page
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