The Microsoft SAM engagement closes on one of four outcomes: a true-up at the order date, a settlement at the renewal, a settlement-with-credit against a renewal commitment, or zero-state. The Admodum read on the settlement posture and the price-level lever that shapes each.
The Microsoft SAM engagement closes on one of four published outcomes. Outcome one: a true-up at the order date, where additional seats or licences are purchased at the order date to close the gap. Outcome two: a settlement at the renewal, where the gap is rolled into the renewal entitlement at the renewal price level. Outcome three: a settlement-with-credit, where the current-period settlement is traded for a renewal-period commitment. Outcome four: zero-state, where the buyer-side ELP reads to zero against the publisher's gap and no commercial outcome follows.
The wider engagement framework sits at the SAM audit anatomy spoke; the scope-control posture that shapes the settlement sits at the SAM scope control spoke; the wider editorial sits in the Microsoft pillar.
The order-date true-up is the publisher's preferred outcome because the unit price applies at the order-date catalogue level, not at the term-locked enrolment level. For a buyer on a price-level B Enterprise Agreement, the order-date true-up applies the order-date list price minus the buyer's term-locked discount; for a buyer on the MCA-E (see MCA-E versus the Enterprise Agreement), the order-date catalogue price applies directly because the MCA-E retires the price-level lock.
The buyer-side discipline at the order-date true-up is to contest the unit price: the term-locked discount must apply on the EA; the buyer's catalogue position must be argued on the MCA-E; any negotiated discount on the comparable buy-now order must apply to the true-up.
The wider true-up cadence sits at the EA True-Up mechanics spoke; the renewal cadence sits at Microsoft EA renewal cycle; the fiscal-year cadence that prices the settlement sits at the Microsoft fiscal year.
The settlement at renewal rolls the gap into the renewal entitlement at the renewal price level. This is typically the buyer's preferred outcome when the renewal is within twelve to eighteen months, because the renewal discount applies to the gap-driven additions as well as to the new-entitlement quantum, and the renewal posture (BATNA, account-team dynamic, fiscal-year cadence) drives both.
The buyer-side discipline at settlement-at-renewal is to stage the timing: hold the gap report through the renewal-cycle calendar, complete the renewal negotiation first, and roll the gap into the negotiated renewal at the negotiated price level. This requires the audit-clause window to permit deferral (see SAM scope control section v).
The settlement-with-credit outcome trades a current-period settlement for a renewal-period commitment. The mechanic: the buyer commits to a named renewal quantum (typically an E5 step-up population, a Defender suite consolidation, an Azure MACC increase, a Copilot seat commitment), and the publisher writes off some or all of the current-period gap against that renewal commitment.
The buyer-side discipline at settlement-with-credit is to read the credit as a renewal discount and price it back: a credit equal to two years of E5 step-up is worth more than the comparable renewal discount only if the commitment is one the buyer would have made anyway. Where the renewal commitment is one the buyer would not have made independently, the credit is being used to buy a commitment the publisher could not otherwise have closed.
The wider Copilot-economics read sits at Copilot seat economics; the M365 plan-tier read sits at Microsoft 365 plans; the Defender read sits at Defender suite licensing; the MACC mechanic sits at Azure MACC design.
The zero-state outcome is achievable when the buyer-side ELP reads to zero against the publisher's gap report. The disciplines that produce zero-state are: scope-control discipline during scoping (the perimeter is bounded to what the enrolment actually covers), data-surrender discipline during data collection (the data the buyer surrenders is scoped, validated and read before submission), and parallel-ELP discipline during ELP build (the buyer-side reconciliation is run against the same data, before the partner's draft is received).
The zero-state outcome is most often reached on the secondary products (Defender, Entra ID P2, Power Platform) where the gap is typically a seat-assignment hygiene issue (assigned but unexercised licences read against a free or P1 alternative); it is least often reached on the core products (Windows Server, SQL Server, M365 E3/E5) where the gap is typically a true entitlement-versus-deployment delta.
The wider seat-assignment hygiene context sits at the seat-assignment hygiene spoke; the per-user per-device construct sits at per-user versus per-device; the engagement-models read sits at the Fixed Fee, Contingency and Annual Retainer pages.
At the close of the SAM engagement, the buyer holds five artefacts: the settlement letter (the commercial outcome and its commercial terms), the price-level read (the unit price at which the settlement was struck and how it relates to the order-date and renewal-date catalogue), the credit ledger (if a settlement-with-credit applied, the renewal commitment it bought and the renewal-period accounting), the closing memorandum (the engagement's overall outcome, the data surrendered, the false-positive patterns resolved) and the precedent file (the language and the posture for the next engagement).
The wider engagement sits in the Microsoft practice; the aggregated reading list sits in the Microsoft knowledge hub; the active-audit moment routes to Audit Defence; renewal moments route to the Renewal Programme; the engagement opens via the contact page.
The order-date true-up mechanic the settlement is often rolled through.
A senior Admodum Microsoft advisor will read your gap report, the price-level posture and the renewal-cycle calendar against the four-outcome framework on a private call. Active audit moments route to Audit Defence.