Ask for the licence gap, not the licence list

A software licence audit usually starts and ends with a spreadsheet of what's assigned to whom, and the total at the bottom feels like the answer. It isn't - it's just a tidier version of the bill you're already paying. The number that actually saves money is the gap between what's assigned and what's being used, and that requires two exports, not one: the licence assignment list, and a usage report from the same period.

Paste both into a model and ask it to match them by user, flagging anyone with a licence assigned but no recorded activity in the usage export for a stated period (30 or 90 days is usually enough to be confident, not just unlucky timing), and separately flagging anyone using a feature that needs a higher tier than the one they're currently assigned. The second flag is the one people forget to look for - it's not a saving, but it's a compliance gap that costs more to discover during a vendor audit than it does to catch yourself first.

Run this quarterly rather than once a year. Leavers, role changes and seasonal contractors all leave licence assignments behind between audits, and the gap tends to reopen faster than most teams expect.