Your Company Has 20 Different IT Subscriptions. Who's Actually Tracking Them?
Someone should own a single register of every IT subscription your company pays for, listing the owner, seat count, renewal date, notice period and what breaks if it lapses, and should review it every month. Without that register, unused seats keep billing, duplicate tools multiply, and security renewals such as firewall protection quietly expire.
Our view is blunt: SaaS sprawl is not a software problem, it is an ownership problem. This post sets out a tracking template, then shows how two of the most common business subscriptions, Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Fortinet FortiGuard on a FortiGate-40F, behave at renewal and expiry.
What should an IT subscription tracker include?
Copy this into a shared spreadsheet. One row per subscription, not per vendor.
| Column | What to record | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Service and plan | Exact product and tier, for example Microsoft 365 Business Standard | Spots duplicate tools and the wrong tier |
| Business owner | A named person, not "IT" | Someone has to decide whether to renew |
| Billing contact and reseller | Who invoices you, and who you call | Changes to seats often go through the partner |
| Seats bought vs seats used | Two numbers, updated monthly | The gap is money spent on nobody |
| Term and renewal date | Start, end, auto-renew yes or no | Drives the renewal calendar |
| Change window | When seats can be reduced or the plan cancelled | Some windows are only days long |
| Cost per year | Total and per seat | Makes the waste visible |
| Data held | Customer, staff or financial data | Informs offboarding and exit planning |
| What breaks if it lapses | Email, filtering, backups, phones | Separates critical from nice-to-have |
| Admin accounts and MFA | Who can log in as admin | Prevents lock-out when staff leave |
Why does SaaS sprawl happen?
Fairness first: sprawl usually starts with good intentions. A team needs a tool today, a credit card makes it possible in minutes, and the tool works. Multiply that across departments and years, and you get the familiar pattern:
- Duplicate tools. Two file-sharing services, three video platforms, several password managers.
- Unused seats. Licences bought for a project or for staff who have since left.
- Shadow IT. Subscriptions IT never approved, often holding company data.
- Silent renewals. Annual auto-renewals that nobody reviews before the date.
- Orphaned admin accounts. The only admin was the person who signed up, and they have left.
The opposing argument is that central control slows teams down. It can, if every request needs a committee. The answer is not to ban new tools but to require one line in the register before the first invoice is paid.
Microsoft 365: unassigning a licence does not stop the bill
This is an easy leak to miss. Microsoft's own offboarding guidance says that if an employee leaves and you don't want to keep paying for their licence, you "unassign that license and then delete it from your subscription". Unassigning alone frees the seat for someone else; you are still paying for it until you reduce the licence count under Billing, Your products, Remove licenses.
The timing rules are strict. For subscriptions on a Microsoft Customer Agreement, Microsoft says you can only remove licences within seven days of buying or renewing, and you cannot reduce below the number currently assigned to users. Prepaid subscriptions cannot remove licences at all, and subscriptions bought through a Cloud Solution Provider are changed through that partner. That is why the "change window" column in the tracker matters: miss it, and the seat runs to the next renewal.
Offboarding also has a data clock. Microsoft states that when you remove a licence or delete an account, the former employee's mailbox content is retained for 30 days and then permanently deleted, so save or transfer what you need first. The full offboarding checklist is in Your Ex-Employee Might Still Have Access to Company Data.
Right-sizing the tier saves money too. Different users in one tenant can hold different plans. As listed on 23 Oct 2026, Microsoft 365 Business Basic is S$107 per user for 12 months, Microsoft 365 Business Standard is S$213, and Microsoft 365 Business Premium is S$335, all in stock. Staff who only use web apps and email may not need desktop applications; staff who need device management and stronger security controls may need Premium.
What happens if a Microsoft 365 subscription expires?
Microsoft publishes the stages. For standard business subscriptions, an expired subscription stays usable for 30 days, then moves to Disabled for 90 days, when only admins can access the data and users lose access to apps, and finally to Deleted, when data is deleted and the subscription cannot be reactivated. Microsoft notes that from 9 February 2026 the Expired stage no longer applies to licence-based subscriptions bought directly through a Microsoft Customer Agreement, so check which agreement you are on. Either way, a renewal date in a spreadsheet costs far less than a recovery project.
Firewall security renewals: the subscription nobody notices
Security subscriptions are the riskiest to lose because nothing visibly breaks. Fortinet's own technical note on expired FortiGuard licences says the antivirus and IPS engines keep working "however, new signatures will not be updated", and category-based web and DNS filtering stop working. Firewall policy, VPN, SD-WAN and routing continue, so the office stays online and nobody complains, while protection quietly ages.
Put the renewal in the tracker with the device serial. For a FortiGate-40F, the FortiGate-40F 1 Year UTP (24x7) renewal is listed at S$525, available to order. If you are buying new, the FortiGate-40F hardware with FortiCare and UTM bundle is listed at S$1,065 with 1 year, S$2,030 with 3 years and S$2,815 with 5 years, also available to order. A multi-year bundle means fewer renewal dates to track, which is its own kind of saving. Whether licence-gated hardware is good value is debated in Do You Really Own the Hardware If It Needs a Subscription to Work?, and the firewall basics are in our FortiGate for small businesses guide.
A monthly 30-minute subscription review
- Compare seats bought with seats used for every per-user service.
- Check the next 90 days of renewals and their change windows.
- Match the leavers list from HR against every service with a login.
- Look for duplicates by category: storage, chat, video, passwords, e-signature.
- Confirm each critical service has at least two admins with MFA.
- Record any new tool someone has started paying for.
Shadow IT is the same problem as unmanaged devices on the network; staff using personal accounts and personal laptops are covered in Should Companies Ban Personal Laptops From Their Office Network? Unlicensed or grey-market software is a separate risk, explained in non-genuine Microsoft software as a cybersecurity risk.
SourceIT's verdict
Twenty subscriptions are not the problem. Twenty subscriptions with no owner, no renewal date and no seat count are.
You do not need a SaaS management platform to start; a shared sheet and a monthly calendar reminder cover most small and mid-sized offices. As subscriptions extend into hardware, the same logic applies to laptops paid monthly, which we weigh up in Is Device-as-a-Service the Future of IT or Just Another Monthly Bill? And before you renew anything, ask whether the old tool is still earning its place, the theme of Your Office Is Full of E-Waste Disguised as Innovation.
Buying and renewing Microsoft 365 and Fortinet in Singapore
SourceIT supplies Microsoft 365 and Fortinet with local support, and we can consolidate renewals so dates line up. The Microsoft 365 listings state that SourceIT contacts you before the term ends and that seats added mid-term are co-terminated with the existing subscription. Browse the Microsoft 365 for Business collection or Fortinet FortiGate firewalls. For a renewal audit or quotation, use Request for Quotation on the product page, call (65) 6978 3502, email Sales@sourceit.com.sg or use our contact page.
Frequently asked questions
What is SaaS sprawl? The build-up of overlapping, unused or untracked cloud subscriptions across a company, usually because teams sign up independently and nobody owns the full list.
Does removing a Microsoft 365 licence from a user stop the charge? No. Unassigning frees the seat for someone else. To stop paying, you also reduce the licence count in the subscription, within the change window Microsoft allows for your agreement.
When can I reduce Microsoft 365 licences? For Microsoft Customer Agreement subscriptions, Microsoft says within seven days of buying or renewing. Prepaid subscriptions cannot remove licences, and CSP subscriptions are changed through your partner.
What happens to a former employee's mailbox after the licence is removed? Microsoft retains the email, contacts and calendar for 30 days, then deletes them permanently. Save or transfer what you need first.
What happens when a FortiGate security subscription expires? Fortinet says antivirus and IPS keep running without new signature updates, and category-based web and DNS filtering stop working. Firewall, VPN and routing continue.
Do I need software to track subscriptions? Not at first. A shared spreadsheet with an owner, seat counts, renewal dates and change windows, reviewed monthly, covers most small and mid-sized offices.
SourceIT Approved
Researched and verified by the SourceIT team. Last checked October 2026.
