A true-up is a general accounting term that refers to reconciling multiple balances. An enterprise agreement from Microsoft requires its enterprise customers to conduct an annual true-up. That true-up reconciles changes in its users, devices and processors for a particular Microsoft product like SQL Server since the last true-up. This process identifies unapproved installations of these products, which can cause an unexpected bill of thousands or even millions of dollars. It is therefore essential to remove these unauthorized installations before the annual true-up is due.

For Microsoft’s true-ups, increasing counts in the enterprise agreement is quite easy, but reducing the count, also known as truing down, can be very difficult. However, you can make this easier if you perform the steps that are described in the following whitepaper.