What is being tested
Was promotional credit applied only to the services explicitly eligible in the offer? The boundary for this investigation is cloud promotional credit excluded-service scope. Begin with the disputed transaction or population, then identify which promotion terms establishes the observed position and which eligible-service list supports the comparison. A difference in totals should not replace this question.
Evidence: promotion terms
For cloud promotional credit excluded-service scope, promotion terms must be linked to eligible-service list. Retain the applicable wording, effective dates and scope of covered transactions. Identify the event or population that controls the calculation. Do not silently replace a contractual definition with a dashboard label, customary practice or the latest published rule.
Evidence: eligible-service list
For cloud promotional credit excluded-service scope, eligible-service list must be linked to credit ledger. Retain stable identifiers and their effective relationships. Current labels are insufficient when assets or accounts changed during the period. Explain one-to-many relationships explicitly and preserve the history needed to distinguish an alias, replacement or reassignment from a genuinely additional item.
Evidence: credit ledger
For cloud promotional credit excluded-service scope, credit ledger must be linked to service invoice. Use the opening position, dated movements and closing position together. Preserve the distinction between requested, authorized and posted changes. The reconciliation should explain how the source item moved through the account, not simply assert that the final total agrees.
Evidence: service invoice
For cloud promotional credit excluded-service scope, service invoice must be linked to promotion terms. Keep the issued document version and line-level quantity, currency and service period. A header total cannot establish which component is being tested. Retain later corrections as linked versions, so a replacement does not create a second liability.
Reconciliation logic
Map billed service identifiers to the dated promotion eligibility and expiration rather than the total account bill. Build the comparison at the level identified by promotion terms and retain the governing version from eligible-service list. Show intermediate classifications and excluded items separately; a net total can hide an unsupported component or a correctly offset correction.
Exception conditions
Some services can be excluded even when the account has credit. Treat the item as an unresolved exception only when the comparison described here cannot be supported by the linked promotion terms, eligible-service list, credit ledger, service invoice. Document the conflicting input or rule. A plausible operational explanation requires validation, but it should not be discarded to maximize an apparent financial difference.
Human review and outcome
FinOps verifies service identity and procurement verifies offer terms. Retain an eligibility schedule and request explanation of missed eligible application. Keep the reviewer's reason and source references with that disposition. A supported correction should be followed to the revised record or settlement; an accepted explanation can close the question with no adjustment. Missing authority or evidence should remain an open task rather than a confirmed recovery.
Limitations and processing boundary
Do not infer license removability from activity alone or describe a proposed configuration change as confirmed savings. The authoritative spend, license and contract producer is not complete; customer evidence and processing validation are prerequisites to production conclusions. In this scenario, absence of promotion terms or eligible-service list limits whether the comparison can be completed. The review method describes what people should validate, not a promise that AuditRes automatically detects or executes this specific outcome.
AuditRes pathway
Discuss cloud promotional credit excluded-service scope in the Technology Spend workspace. Review current plans, the shared platform and secure evidence requirements; use the existing contact path to confirm the sources and validation this scope requires.
AuditRes Technology Spend: Available for onboarding. Public previews use synthetic demonstration data; production processing remains gated until applicable customer sources and authoritative processors are connected and validated.
Neighboring financial questions
- Cloud billing audit scope
- Cloud credit expiration before invoice settlement
- Software prepaid-credit pack refundability
- Software invoice partial-credit SKU allocation
Technology Spend resource hub · All guides in this evidence collection