Businesses that use SAP software to manage their enterprise databases and finance functions should be aware that the vendor is cracking down on what’s called “indirect access” of its suite of business applications.

Under SAP’s licensing terms, an indirect access scenario occurs when a company’s employees or business partners, who aren’t licensed SAP users, accesses SAP software via a third-party application interface, said Dave Blake CEO of UpperEdge in Boston.

SAP used to ignore these licensing violations, but according to Blake, they’ve recently started cracking down on customers.

Some are getting fees in the millions of dollars for unlicensed use.

The problem is that SAP’s definition of indirect access fails to specifically identify the concept of indirect use which leaves it completely up to SAP to determine when a violation has occurred and to what magnitude.

Finance will want to make sure IT has a heads up about this possible problem.

Tags: indirect use, SAP, Software