Product

Guide · Licences

Microsoft 365 license reconciliation for MSPs

Why Microsoft 365 licences drift between the contract, the distributor and the invoice for MSPs, and how to keep quantities and costs aligned.

3 min readUpdated November 2026By the Revtein team
Vendor cost change · Pax8
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
$18.50$19.80per seat · from Oct 1
Not passed on to 6 clients142 seats · your price stayed $22.00
−$185/mo margin
Decide at renewalor update the price now
In short

Licensing is one of the easiest places for an MSP to lose margin. Quantities change in the client tenant, the distributor bills the MSP for what is provisioned, and the client invoice repeats last month's number.

01Four places a licence count lives

PlaceWhat it tells you
Client contractThe quantity the client agreed to pay for
Client tenantLicences actually assigned
Distributor (for example Pax8, Ingram Micro, Dicker Data)What you are buying and what it costs
Client invoiceWhat you billed

02Common drift

  • Seats added in the tenant but not added to the invoice.
  • Seats removed from the tenant while the distributor keeps charging.
  • A price change from the distributor that the client price does not follow.
  • A licence tier change, such as Business Premium, that is not reflected in the contract.

Vendor Costs in Revtein

Revtein watches what your vendors and distributors charge you, compares it with what you bill, and checks the contract before calling anything lost…

See how it works
Vendor cost change · Pax8
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
$18.50$19.80per seat · from Oct 1
Not passed on to 6 clients142 seats · your price stayed $22.00
−$185/mo margin
Decide at renewalor update the price now

03How to align them

  1. Match each client tenant to the client record in your PSA.
  2. Compare assigned licences with the contracted quantity and the invoice line.
  3. Compare your distributor cost with your client price per licence.
  4. Fix the quantity or price where the contract supports it, and record exceptions where it does not.
  5. Check again next month.
Revtein reads licences from Microsoft 365 and supplier costs from Pax8, Ingram Micro and Dicker Data through the connector or an import file, then compares them with the contract and invoice. See vendor cost management.

FAQ

Questions about this guide

Why do Microsoft 365 licence counts drift for MSPs?

Because the tenant, the distributor subscription and the client invoice are updated by different people at different times.

Do I need a distributor connection to reconcile licences?

No. A CSV or Excel cost file can be imported and is labeled as file evidence.

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