The decision rule is a ratio, and it has to be measured before it can be applied: many occasional external users creating few documents each favour the document-based digital access model, while a handful of heavy integrations generating millions of line items can favour staying on user-based treatment where the contract still allows it. On new S/4HANA paper digital access is the default, so for most buyers the live question is not which model but on what measured baseline, and with how much of the adoption-program discount, they enter it.
Published 10 April 2026 · Last reviewed 21 April 2026
For most of SAP’s history, indirect use — people and systems reaching SAP data through a third-party front end, a customer portal, a bolt-on CRM — was licensed the same way direct use was: with named users. SAP’s position was that use is use, however it arrives; many customers’ position was that pricing a webshop’s entire customer base as named users was disproportionate to the value consumed. The disagreement stopped being theoretical in 2017, when an English High Court ruling in SAP’s litigation with a major beverage company found indirect access via a connected Salesforce system licensable under the customer’s named-user contract — a decision that, together with a far larger arbitration claim against another multinational the same year, made indirect use the most feared line item in SAP audits. Both sides’ positions were commercially rational; the paper simply predated the architecture.
SAP’s structural answer arrived in 2018: digital access, a document-based model that prices indirect use by what it creates rather than who is behind it. Nine document types, counted at creation, replace the impossible task of enumerating external users. On new S/4HANA agreements it is the standard treatment — which is why this choice surfaces inside every ECC-to-S/4HANA conversion — while older contracts may still carry user-based indirect terms that remain valid until renegotiated.
This guide is general information about SAP licensing models as they stand in 2026, not licensing or legal advice; counting definitions vary by contract and your contract governs. Where this page touches past disputes, it states both sides’ factual positions and takes neither. It names no firms; the firm directory lists SAP-capable advisors with balanced pros and cons, listed, not ranked.
Digital access covers exactly nine document categories: sales, invoice, purchase, service and maintenance, manufacturing, quality management, time management, financial and material documents. A document counts when it is created in SAP by an indirect or automated channel — an e-commerce order landing as a sales order, a supplier portal raising a purchase order, an external time clock posting entries. Three rules shape the arithmetic more than the list itself:
Creation only. A document is counted once, at creation. Reading, updating or deleting it later adds nothing, and direct creation by an appropriately licensed human in SAP’s own interfaces is outside the model entirely.
The follow-on rule. When one external event triggers a chain — an order that spawns a delivery that spawns an invoice — only the originating document counts in principle. The burden of demonstrating which documents are follow-ons sits with you, which is an argument for clean document-flow records, not just clean intentions.
Line items and weightings. Several document types — sales, purchase and invoice documents among them — are counted at line-item level, so one fifty-line order is fifty counted items, not one. Financial and material documents carry a reduced weighting (a fraction of a document each) in recognition of their volumes. These two rules pull in opposite directions, and together they explain why two companies with identical order counts can have wildly different document positions. The counting definitions in your agreement are the ones that bind — validate borderline scenarios in writing rather than by analogy.
| MECHANIC | INDIRECT NAMED USERS (LEGACY) | DIGITAL ACCESS (DOCUMENTS) |
|---|---|---|
| What is licensed | The people (and systems) behind third-party access, as named-user types | Creation of nine document types via indirect channels |
| Unit of count | Individuals — hard to enumerate for portals, webshops, IoT | Documents, partly at line-item level, with weightings for high-volume types |
| Cost driver | Headcount behind integrations, regardless of activity | Transaction volume, regardless of how many people generate it |
| Measurability | Poor — external populations fluctuate and resist counting | Tooling-supported — SAP’s estimation note reports document creation by channel |
| Where it lives today | Valid on legacy contracts until renegotiated; no longer how new paper is written | Default on new S/4HANA agreements; bundled as allotments in RISE and GROW |
| Transition route | — | Adoption program (DAAP): measured baseline, deep one-time discounts, license credit |
| Audit posture | Disputes over who counts as a user; the model behind the 2017 cases | Disputes over counting and follow-ons; a standing item in SAP measurement |
Note what the table does not say: that one model is safe. Both have audit surface — they simply argue about different things. User-based treatment argues about who needs a license; document-based treatment argues about what counted and whether the follow-on chain was attributed correctly. The exposure moved; it did not vanish.
The document model fits the architectures it was designed for: customer portals, webshops, supplier networks, mobile apps — anywhere a large, fluctuating external population creates a modest number of documents each. Licensing those populations by name was the legacy model’s pathology, and for this buyer digital access converts an unanswerable question (how many people?) into a measurable one (how many documents?).
User-based treatment can still fit estates with the opposite shape: a small, stable set of identifiable heavy users working through a third-party front end, or contracts whose existing indirect terms are favourable and undisturbed. A handful of integrations pumping millions of multi-line documents through line-item counting can model dramatically worse under documents than the people behind them would cost as users — which is why the ratio, not the rhetoric, decides.
Under RISE and GROW the question changes shape rather than disappearing. Document allotments are typically bundled into the subscription, and the negotiation is about the size of the allotment and the treatment of growth — one of several places where the cloud programs’ contract differences matter more than their branding. Whichever model fits, the prerequisite is the same: run the measurement before anyone else runs it for you. Document-creation analysis against actual integration flows is standard compliance assessment work, and it is the difference between choosing a model and being assigned one.
The Digital Access Adoption Program (DAAP) — still available in 2026 — is the structured route from one model to the other: measure current document creation with SAP’s estimation tooling, then license that baseline with steep one-time discounts (figures up to ninety percent off list have been documented) or apply credit from existing licenses inside a broader contract conversion. Three negotiation realities follow.
The baseline is the deal. The discount applies to what you measure at adoption, so integration clean-up — deduplicating feeds, eliminating unnecessary document creation, attributing follow-ons correctly — done before measurement is worth more than any concession won after it. This sequencing is precisely the work an SAP licensing advisory engagement front-loads.
Growth terms outlast the headline discount. A deep discount on today’s baseline paired with list-price exposure on tomorrow’s growth is a deferred problem, not a solved one. Caps, growth bands and renewal treatment for document volumes belong in the paper at signature.
Timing leverage is real in both directions. Adopting digital access inside a larger event — an S/4HANA conversion, a renewal, a RISE negotiation — lets the position ride on the bigger deal’s leverage. Waiting for an audit to raise it reverses the polarity: regularising under measurement pressure, with back-support on the table, is the most expensive way to enter the model. If an audit letter has already arrived, that is a different engagement — see the site’s SAP audit defense coverage — but the both-sides point stands: SAP regards unlicensed indirect use as use, customers regard retroactive document pricing as negotiable, and settlements routinely land between those positions.
The technical-user fallacy. Giving an integration a licensed “technical user” does not exempt the documents it creates. If an external system creates covered documents, the model applies regardless of which account did the posting.
Forgetting line items. Estimates built on order counts rather than line-item counts understate sales, purchase and invoice volumes — sometimes by an order of magnitude. Count the way the contract counts.
Unattributed follow-ons. The originating-document rule only protects chains you can demonstrate. Integration flows that obscure document lineage convert free follow-ons into counted creations.
Buying volume out of fear. Document blocks purchased “to be safe” carry support forever and rarely shrink. Fear is not a forecast; measurement is.
Treating the RISE allotment as boilerplate. A bundled document allotment is a negotiated number. Signing without checking it against actual integration volumes imports a true-up into year two.
Running the vendor’s measurement first. Whoever measures first frames the negotiation. An internal document-creation analysis — validated, channel-attributed, follow-ons mapped — should exist before SAP’s estimation note runs, and choosing who builds it is part of the decision.
The conversion where this choice surfaces →
The direct-use metric question →
Where document allotments get bundled →
How to pick the firm for this work →
Firms that measure these positions →
Every field guide on the site →
Digital access is SAP’s document-based model for licensing indirect use: instead of requiring a named-user license for every person or system reaching SAP through a third-party application, it charges for the creation of nine defined document types (sales, invoice, purchase, service and maintenance, manufacturing, quality management, time management, financial and material documents) when they are created indirectly. Introduced in 2018 after years of indirect-use disputes, it is the standard model on new S/4HANA paper.
A document counts once, at creation, when an external or automated channel creates it; subsequent reads, updates and deletions of that document are not counted again. Follow-on documents that SAP generates internally from an already-counted originating document are, in principle, not counted separately. Several document types are counted at line-item level rather than per header, which multiplies counts for multi-line orders and invoices, while financial and material documents carry a reduced weighting to reflect their volumes. The counting definitions in your contract govern — verify them rather than assuming.
Existing contracts that license indirect use through named users remain valid — perpetual paper does not rewrite itself. The choice mostly faces installed-base customers at a conversion, renewal or audit event: stay on user-based treatment where the contract supports it, or adopt the document model, usually via a negotiated transition. New S/4HANA agreements are written on digital access by default, so for new paper the question is less which model than on what terms.
DAAP is SAP’s structured route for regularising an indirect-use position: the customer measures current document creation with SAP’s estimation tooling, then licenses that baseline with steep one-time discounts — figures up to ninety percent off list have been documented — or applies credit from existing licenses in a contract conversion. The program has remained available into 2026. The strategic point is that the discount applies to the measured baseline at adoption, so what you measure, and when, largely determines what the model costs you.
It depends on the ratio of external users to the documents they create, which is why measurement precedes the choice. Many occasional external users generating few documents each favour the document model — licensing thousands of portal users by name was the old model’s pathology. A small number of heavy integrations generating very high document volumes can model the other way, particularly with line-item counting in play. Neither answer survives contact with unmeasured estimates.
Yes — indirect document creation remains a licensing topic in the cloud programs, typically handled through allotments bundled into the subscription. The mechanics are the same; what changes is where the number lives. A RISE or GROW document allotment is a negotiated quantity worth checking against your actual integration landscape before signature, because growth beyond it surfaces at true-up and renewal.
Measuring an indirect-use position, choosing the model and timing the adoption is exactly what an SAP licensing advisor is for. The directory lists the firms that do this work, with balanced pros and cons, listed, not ranked.
Tell us the vendor, the service you need and where things stand, and we will route your brief to firms that genuinely cover that combination. The directory and matching are free for buyers, no vendor ever sees your brief, and we add no markup.
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