The Best Ways to Find Someone for Your Next Licensing Audit

While almost everything in business has changed in the past decade, few things have revolutionized the world of profits and marketing like licensing agreements. But these licenses have also become harder to control in recent times as well, which is why every business can benefit from a licensing audit. Not only can an audit give you a complete run down of your assets, it can also help you enforce your rights in the future, and make the most of what you have.

Licensing Audit Basics:

A licensing audit starts with all your current licenses, be they trademarks, proprietary processes, copyrights or other intellectual property. Auditors verify that licensees are honoring contractual terms and that the licensor (you) are receiving accurate payments.

The Difference between a Good and Bad Audit

There’s one key difference between a good licensing audit and a bad one. Good audits operate on the principle that open communication is key for all parties involved. Bad audits try to obscure the process, and sometimes even the results.

Clear communication helps in a few ways. First, open communication reduces the disruptions that businesses commonly experience during a licensing audit, and helps things get back to business as usual afterwards. By knowing exactly what’s happening, your business can adapt, change and use the information gathered much sooner afterwards, which is useful for every aspect of your business. Open communication is also just more effective: it gives auditors access to the resources and information they need to make your company better.

What Licensing Audits Do

Performing licensing audits often uncovers discrepancies in your licenses and payment structures that could be costing you millions of dollars, and organizes ways that you can get the money owed to you and your business. The cost of the audit is often significantly less than the money that’s discovered. Not only does that mean your licensing audit could pay for itself, it could generate a lot of revenue that you can then reinvest into your company to make it stronger, better and more successful.

How to Choose your License Auditor

You will want to pick a firm with the experience and skills necessary to perform royalty and licensing audits for your business, be it clothing, technology, consumer products or different aspects of the entertainment industry. For the latter, a firm with a strong position in Hollywood could provide the perspective you need to fully utilize all your different licenses. It could make for better license agreements, and better representation in your fields of business.

If you have licensing of almost any product, from apparel to live theatre, you need professional services that know what’s best for your business. Since licensing is such a large part of almost any business in today’s world, try to find someone who knows what they’re doing, and has your best interests at heart; that doesn’t mean just in the here and now, it also means looking into the future. If you pick the right firm for your licensing audit, you can be confident that your business can flourish, now and into the future.

Miller Kaplan Arase LLP is a certified public accounting firm specializing in accounting, business management, 401k reporting, financial tax planning, royalty and licensing audit services for individuals, healthcare, media, real estate, food and beverage industries, and tax-exempt organizations worldwide. To know about software licensing audit visit Wikipedia.org.