Stay ahead of contracts

In one week, Asato shows a customer what to cut before a renewal. The customer starts with one large renewal and holds an Asset Clarity Report that shows what is still used and lists each change with its yearly price, its owner and the date to decide by. Asato matches each contract to its invoices, its entitlements and real usage, reads contracts side by side to show services paid for twice, prepares the renewal brief, and carries out the change a named person approves. The customer negotiates and gives notice. Asato does not negotiate. Asato's fee is a share of the savings, and if the report finds no savings the customer pays nothing.

This job was earlier called "Take control of renewals". The file name is unchanged.

When to use it

• A large renewal is approaching and the organization cannot say how many seats are still used.
• Renewal dates and notice dates sit with procurement, and usage sits with IT, and the two are not compared before the notice date.
• Contracts renew as they stand because nobody acted before the notice date.
• A replacement was bought and the old contract was never canceled, so the same service is paid for in two contracts.

Not a fit

• Storing and signing contracts. That is the job of a contract system, which Asato reads from and does not replace.
• A renewal calendar on its own. Asato ties each date to usage and to a priced change.
• Negotiating with a vendor or giving notice on the customer's behalf. Asato equips the customer to do both. Asato does not negotiate.

The job in one line

In one week, see what to cut before you renew.

The problem: if nobody acts by the notice date, the contract renews as it stands

A buyer usually knows the renewal date and does not know what is still used. The contract sits with procurement. The usage sits with IT. If the two never meet before the notice date, the contract renews as it stands.

Found, not approved, at an enterprise with 75,000 Microsoft seats, whose story is under Measured results: at its renewal, about 5,600 of the frontline seats Asato had found stayed on the bill. Time ran out.

Three questions to answer before the notice date

A contract has a clock: a decision window, a notice date and a renewal date. In the page's example the decision window is the 90 days from September 15 to December 14, notice is due by December 14 and the contract renews on March 14. Asato answers three questions inside the decision window, each with the same three steps.

1. Is what the contract covers still used? (usage)
   • Link: the contract is matched to its invoices, entitlements and usage.
   • Think: seats not used in 90 days are counted, and each change gets a yearly price.
   • Execute: after a named person approves, Asato reclaims the licenses and logs the change.
   • Found, at that enterprise: one frontline license in four was dormant.
2. Is the same service in two contracts? (overlap) Asato reads a customer's contracts side by side and shows the services paid for twice. Each contract can look right on its own. The overlap shows only when the contracts are read together.
   • Link: the contracts are read side by side, service by service.
   • Think: each overlap is listed with the contracts it sits in, its price and its owner.
   • Execute: Asato prepares the renewal brief. After a named person approves, the agent opens the ticket for a fix that needs a person.
   • No dollar result is published for contract comparison itself. The published renewal result is the Microsoft renewal under Measured results.
3. What will you change, and who approves it? (decision)
   • Link: each contract is tied to its notice date, its usage and its owner.
   • Think: the options are to keep, to cut or to change tier. Each option is priced before the notice date.
   • Execute: a named person approves a recommendation. Asato carries it out, logs it and keeps watching the next date.
   • The customer negotiates and gives notice, with Asato's count in hand. Asato does not negotiate.

Nothing changes until a named person approves it. A person the customer names approves each fix, or sets a policy that governs fixes of that kind.

The three steps under each question are the same three the platform runs everywhere. Link: the Asset Knowledge Graph links assets, people, contracts and costs into one record. Think: the Data Intelligence Engine turns the record into recommendations, each with a price and an owner. Execute: Agentic AI carries out the recommendations a named person approves, and keeps watching. The platform page has the detail.

Deployed today, on approval: Asato reclaims or downgrades licenses in the source system, opens tickets and workflows, and prepares renewal briefs.

What the customer gets back

The Asset Clarity Report is a priced list of what to stop paying for, with the owner of each item. For contracts, each line names the contract, what Asato found, what to change, the owner, the yearly value and the date to decide by. Each line in the report is found, not approved. A named person decides each line.

The page shows an example report. Its figures are example data, not a customer result:

Example total found: $426,600 a year, not yet approved.

Example data on the page

The product screens on the visual page show example data, not a customer result. One example estate is used throughout, with today fixed at October 4:

• Four renewals in the next 12 months. Collaboration suite: notice by December 14, renews March 14, 860 of 1,200 seats in use, and a renewal brief is ready to cut 340 seats worth $122,400 a year. Meetings and webinars: notice by February 1, renews May 2, its video meetings are also in the collaboration suite. Endpoint security: notice by May 1, renews June 30, 2,310 of 2,400 seats in use. Analytics platform: notice by July 19, renews September 17, 190 of 400 seats in use.
• One contract beside its usage. The collaboration suite contract says 1,200 seats and renews as it stands, for 12 months, if nobody acts. The estate says 860 seats were used in the last 90 days and 340 were paid for and not used. Found: cut 340 seats, $122,400 a year.
• Two contracts read side by side. The collaboration suite, $432,000 a year, includes email and calendar, files and storage, video meetings and chat for 1,200 seats. Meetings and webinars, $216,000 a year, includes webinars, room systems, video meetings for 900 seats and recording storage. Video meetings is in both: 900 people are covered twice, and $162,000 a year sits in the contract that renews on May 2.
• One contract from options to renewal. Three options, each priced: keep 1,200 seats at $432,000 a year, cut 340 unused seats for $309,600 a year, or cut and change tier for 200 for $280,800 a year. The owner is End-user computing. What happens next: the renewal brief is ready on October 4, 71 days before notice is due. On October 9 a named person approves, 340 licenses are reclaimed and the change is logged. On October 12 a ticket is opened to renew at 860 seats. On March 14 the contract renews at 860 seats, and Asato watches the next date.

Figures on the page and their captions

Each figure on the visual page carries one caption, which says whose data it is and what to look at. A caption shows when the reader points at its figure, or taps it on a touch screen, and takes no room on the page otherwise. The caption of each example figure is labeled "Example data". Each figure builds up once when the reader reaches it and then holds its complete state. The captions and the example data in this file describe that complete state.

1. Renewals, next 12 months. Example data. "Four renewals on one time axis, with today marked. On the first row, notice is due by December 14 and 340 of 1,200 seats are not used."
2. The three questions, each a link, above Link, Think and Execute. Asato's method. "The three questions are answered inside the decision window, before the notice date passes."
3. Collaboration suite, one contract. Example data. "Each dot is 10 seats. 340 of the 1,200 were not used in 90 days, and the contract renews for all 1,200 unless someone acts by December 14."
4. Two contracts, read side by side. Example data. "Video meetings is in both contracts, so 900 people are covered twice. The $162,000 a year sits in the contract that renews on May 2."
5. Collaboration suite, from options to renewal. Example data. "The brief is ready on October 4, 71 days before notice is due. After a named person approves, the contract renews at 860 seats."
6. Asset Clarity Report, contracts. Example data. "Each line names what Asato found, what to change, the owner, the yearly value and the date to decide by. A named person decides each line."
7. The DART quote. Ravi Campbell, VP Information Technology, DART.

The strip under the headline is text and figures with no caption. Its title reads "One enterprise, one Microsoft renewal." It is described under Measured results.

Measured results

Each figure belongs to one customer. Found, Approved and Saved are separate figures. They are never added together.

• The enterprise with 75,000 Microsoft seats and about $40M a year of Microsoft spend. Asato found about $8M a year, weeks before the renewal. The enterprise approved about $4M a year before the renewal date. It saved $4M a year at the renewal. Saved figures are agreed jointly by the customer and Asato at the close of the engagement. The enterprise negotiated its own renewal. Asato does not negotiate.
  • On the visual page the story is told once, in the strip under the headline. The strip's title reads "One enterprise, one Microsoft renewal." and it shows three figures: the bill if renewed unchanged, about 8% higher (Measured); about $4M a year, before the renewal date (Approved); and $4M a year, at the renewal (Saved). Later sections refer to "that enterprise" and add one fact each, given below. The about $8M a year found, the about $40M a year of Microsoft spend, the 75,000 seats and the 11% and 19% figures are not on the visual page: they are in the case study.
  • Measured, annualized against today's spend: renewed unchanged, the renewal lands 8% higher. With the approved changes it lands 11% lower. With everything found it lands 19% lower. Usage from Microsoft Graph telemetry. License position priced at list. Figures rounded.
  • Measured: renewing early held the increase to about 3%, against 8% at the natural renewal date.
  • Found: one frontline license in four was dormant.
  • Found, not approved: at its renewal, about 5,600 of the frontline seats Asato had found stayed on the bill. Time ran out.
  • The full story is in the case study: https://www.asato.ai/case-study-health-system-microsoft-renewal
• DART. Asato reviewed DART's Microsoft licensing ahead of an Enterprise Agreement renewal. Ravi Campbell, VP Information Technology, DART: "In just four weeks, Asato showed us exactly how our Microsoft licenses were being used across the group. Every recommendation was tied to a named user and actual usage data, which made decisions defensible rather than debatable. Delivered as we entered our Microsoft EA renewal, the insights enabled informed licensing changes that resulted in meaningful cost savings." The visual page shows the quote from "Every recommendation" onward. "In just four weeks" is DART's own duration.

Who uses it

The visual page has no section by role. The roles this job answers:

• Procurement: holds the contracts, and gets one list of renewals and notice dates, each with what to change and what it is worth.
• Vendor manager inside IT: gets seats contracted against seats used, and the services that appear in two contracts.
• CIO: is accountable, and gets each option priced, each with a named owner, and a log of what was approved and changed.
• CFO: signs, and gets a renewal brief that shows what is used, what is not, and what each option costs.

Trust and governance

• Asato reads records about technology: licenses, usage, sign-in activity and costs. Contracts and invoices are read only if the customer connects them. Asato never reads employees' documents, email or messages.
• Access is read-only by default, with write access where the customer grants it. The first week, in which the Asset Clarity Report is built, uses read-only access.
• Nothing changes until a named person approves it, and each action is logged. A person the customer names approves each fix, or sets a policy that governs fixes of that kind.
• Asato is certified to HITRUST e1, SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO/IEC 27001:2022, and is FedRAMP Ready. Reports are in the Trust Center: https://trust.asato.ai

Works with

Asato connects to more than 100 tools, including ServiceNow and the contract, finance and identity tools you already run. For this job it reads four kinds of record:

• Contracts: renewal dates, notice dates and the services in each contract.
• Invoices: what was billed against each contract.
• Entitlements: what was bought.
• Usage: what is still used.

The customer's tools keep working. Nothing is migrated or replaced.

Compared with

How a customer starts

Section heading on the visual page: "No savings, no fee." The line under it: "Start with one renewal. Your Asset Clarity Report takes one week."

The action: the button "Get your Asset Clarity Report", which leads to https://www.asato.ai/talk-to-sales. The line under the button: "Read-only access to your contract, invoice, entitlement and usage records. Nothing is installed."

The offer: one area, one week, read-only access, and the Asset Clarity Report. Asato's fee is a share of the savings. If it finds no savings, the customer pays nothing.

Questions

The page shows at most five questions, the ones that belong to it. Any others are kept here for agents.

The visual page shows four of the questions below: the first three, and "How long before a renewal should a customer start?".

How is Asato different from a renewal calendar?

It knows what is used. A calendar tells a team when a contract renews. Asato matches each contract to its invoices, its entitlements and real usage, so each renewal date and notice date sits beside what is still used, and what each change is worth.

Does Asato replace a contract system?

No. The contract system stays the record of what was agreed. Asato reads from it and from the other tools the customer already runs. Nothing is migrated or replaced.

Does Asato negotiate with the vendor?

No. Asato equips the customer to negotiate: it supplies the count and the evidence behind it. The customer negotiates, and the customer gives notice. The enterprise under Measured results negotiated its own renewal.

Who decides what changes at a renewal?

A named person. Asato prices each option and prepares the renewal brief. Nothing changes until a named person approves it. A person the customer names approves each fix, or sets a policy that governs fixes of that kind. Then Asato carries out the change and logs it. If a fix needs a person, the agent opens the ticket.

What does Asato read?

Records about technology: licenses, usage, sign-in activity and costs. Contracts and invoices are read only if the customer connects them. Asato never reads employees' documents, email or messages. Access is read-only by default, with write access where the customer grants it.

How does Asato find a service paid for twice?

Asato reads the customer's contracts side by side and shows the services that appear in more than one. Each overlap is listed with the contracts it sits in, its price and its owner. This question is answered in the second of the three questions on the visual page.

How long before a renewal should a customer start?

As early as possible. The Asset Clarity Report takes one week, so a customer should start well before the notice date, while there is still time to act on what the report finds. Timing also changes the price. Measured, at the enterprise under Measured results: renewing early held the increase to about 3%, against 8% at the natural renewal date.

What does Asato cost?

Asato is paid mostly on results: a small share when it finds a saving, and the larger share only once that saving shows up on the customer's invoice. The Asset Clarity Report takes one week. If it finds no savings, the customer pays nothing.

Next step

Get an Asset Clarity Report for one renewal: https://www.asato.ai/talk-to-sales.

Related pages

• Asato home
• Platform
• Right-size software
• Case study: the Microsoft renewal
• Control AI spend
• Site index for agents

Last updated: 2026-10-06