You probably don’t realize it, but when you buy software, you don’t really buy it.  What you get with software is more like a lease (well, a license actually) that lets you use the software under certain conditions and sometimes only for a set period of time. That End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) you never read when you’re installing the software spells out the details of the license you’re getting.

If your small business is using more than one computer, you need a system for monitoring the software licenses you own.  Here are some of the things you should be keeping track of:

• Is every piece of software legal and running on an unexpired license? (By legal, I mean, do you have a license, is the license current, and are you using the software according to the stipulations of the license?  If, for example the license allows the software to be installed on only one computer, but you’ve installed it on every computer in the office, you’re violating copyright laws and the software isn’t legal.)

• Are all software disks, licensing agreements, and product keys accounted for and stored someplace where you can find them if you need them?

• Do you know when your various software licenses expire?

• Do you own licenses for software you’re no longer using? (It’s not uncommon for businesses with many computers to have gotten rid of the computer that used a particular software program or to have stopped using the software, but still be paying for the license without realizing it.)

• Does everyone who works for you know that they’re not to download or install any software or apps onto company computers without your approval (or the approval of whomever you designate) and that all receipts, disks, EULAs, and product keys are to be saved and stored in a central location?

If you have an IT person, he or she has probably already created some kind of software asset management system for your business.  But in the absence of an IT professional, you or someone you designate should be responsible for this.  If you’re a small operation, it’s not likely that some big software company will ever come after you over licensing agreement violations.  Still, it’s not good business to knowingly put your operation at risk by failing to observe copyright laws.

There are a number of software packages that can help you maintain your software license records, including some that can check all of your computers and report to you the status of all your software.  In addition, Microsoft offers an excellent website and free online tutorials on how to start and maintain a software asset management program.  Their lessons and suggestions center around Microsoft products, but the software asset management practices they teach are applicable to any platform and any software.