Knowing what the customer holds, as of today

One record per thing held

In the tool, what the customer owns is not a document: it is a list of records, one per product held, with its quantity, its dates and its amount.

Each line also reads over time: how many they had last year, how many today, what it represents monthly.

An amendment adds, it does not replace

This is what surprises people most. When a customer removes licences mid-year, the original order is not edited: a new negative transaction is recorded, and the sum of the two says what they hold.

The practical consequence matters: invoices already sent are never rewritten. A removal produces a credit, or a smaller invoice next period, not a retroactive correction. That is what your accounting expects, and rarely what people imagine.

What the business has to decide

1. What counts as “held”. A suspended product, a free licence, a module on trial: each needs an answer, or your installed-base figures mean nothing.
2. Who may amend, and how far. Removing licences mid-commitment is not always the customer’s right. That is a commercial rule, not a setting.
3. What happens mid-period. A removal in the middle of an already-billed quarter: immediate credit, or deduction next period? Finance decides.

What goes wrong

• The installed base does not reconcile with billing. If the two differ, one is wrong, and it is almost always the one nobody looks at.
• Amendments are done “at the next renewal”. The installed base is then wrong for months, and the renewal starts from a wrong base.
• Nobody can say what the customer held at a past date. Which is exactly the question an audit, a dispute or a migration asks.

What to take away

• What the customer holds is a list of current records, not a signed document.
• An amendment adds; it does not rewrite the original order — and issued invoices never move.
• Three business decisions: what counts as held, who may amend, and what to do with a removal inside an already-billed period.