Renewal rules and alternatives¶
For your first renewal, follow the sourcing-to-renewal walkthrough. This page explains existing purchases, overlapping coverage states, and less common cases.
Link an existing successor¶
If the next entitlement period was already purchased and exists as an Active or Upcoming license from the same publisher, choose Link Existing Successor instead. This secures the renewal and adopts the selected record as its normal successor without creating another sourcing request or pending order. The current record remains Active or Expiring through its own end date, while the renewal actions and workbench alert disappear immediately. The selected record inherits the renewal-chain LT reference; its former reference remains reserved and searchable in history. Date gaps and overlaps are shown for confirmation before linking. If there is a gap, the predecessor remains Expired until the successor starts; it is shown as Renewed only after successor coverage begins. While the linked successor is Upcoming, the expiring predecessor shows Renews in X days (or Renews today) from the successor's start date. A coverage gap remains visible, and pending procurement by itself does not show this countdown.
Publisher is the required matching identity: comparison ignores case and surrounding whitespace. The PO number and description may differ. Both licenses must be eligible renewable types; the successor must extend coverage and have no incoming renewal link. Linking uses the same renewal-action window as initiation, but does not require a budget owner. Open procurement work and existing renewal links must be resolved first.
For maintenance renewals, the successor must also be a maintenance license. Linking activates successor coverage for every parent covered by the predecessor. Unlinking restores the previous parent coverage, relationships, and history. If coverage has changed since linking or the previous maintenance is no longer available, LicenseTrack stops the unlink so those relationships can be reviewed. Ordinary edits and CSV updates must preserve valid terms across established renewal links.
An existing-purchase renewal has no new sourcing or pending-order stages to show. Its procurement trail records the predecessor and successor record IDs, PO number, former successor reference, actor, and link time, while preserving the successor's original purchase trail.
Renewal work and coverage dates¶
Pending Renewal describes the procurement workflow; it does not replace the current term's date status. In License Overview, a pending row keeps its purple shade and Pending Renewal badge while an orange or red edge and a second badge show whether the term is Expiring or Expired. The row appears under Pending and also under its applicable Expiring or Expired filter.
Renewal-action window and annual value¶
Administrators can configure the renewal-action window independently from the expiry-alert window. Until configured, it inherits the expiry-alert value. Changing the action window does not change when a term is Expiring or Expired.
The workbench's estimated annual value annualizes multi-year term cost, so a two- or three-year purchase is not presented as though the complete term value were one year's spend. A one-year term counts up to 366 days, which covers leap years and terms that end on the anniversary date, so it is never scaled down.
High-value flags use one threshold per currency, set in Admin > Renewals. Each row is compared with the threshold for its own currency; there is no currency conversion, and a currency without a threshold is never flagged.
Notice deadlines¶
A license with an unhandled Notice Date inside the workbench window appears in the workbench even when its end date is further out, for example an auto-renewing contract that must be cancelled two months before it ends. Rows are ordered by whichever deadline comes first. When the notice date is the earlier one, the Due Date column shows it with an N marker and the row is flagged Notice deadline in N days. The Notice Due view lists only these rows. Marking the notice handled in License Details removes the notice from the workbench.
Renewable Service and Other¶
Service and Other records renew only when Renewable? is ticked. A renewable one behaves like a subscription: it can be renewed, appears in the workbench, and counts toward recurring cost. A one-off record never raises renewal work or expiry alerts, and a daily job retires it after its end date.
Included maintenance that is ending¶
Perpetual, OEM, and freeware/open-source licenses can have maintenance included with the purchase for a limited period. When that maintenance has an end date, the license shows a maintenance status: active, expiring (inside the expiry alert window), or expired. Expiring and expired maintenance shows a badge in License Overview and in the Maintenance section, the Maintenance due filter lists these licenses, and the notification list and manager digest include them.
Inside the workbench window, the license also gets its own workbench row, marked (included maintenance), with two actions:
- Start maintenance renewal is the usual route. It creates a sourcing request with one maintenance line that already names the license it supports. The line starts the day after the included maintenance ends and runs one year, and it copies the quantity, supplier, contact, cost centre, budget owner, and the previous maintenance cost as its estimate. The license keeps its Included coverage until the new maintenance record is created at conversion. The included period is then kept in Coverage History.
- Record existing maintenance opens the ordinary maintenance form, for maintenance that was already bought outside LicenseTrack.
To correct the included period itself, use Edit maintenance in the license's Maintenance section. The maintenance cost is optional, and Free (no charge) records maintenance that costs nothing.
Information carried into the next term¶
Admins can also choose, per custom-field definition, whether its value is copied into a renewal. Copied values are a snapshot taken when renewal starts; fields configured to start blank can be completed for the new term during sourcing or pending-order review.
The predecessor's explicit maintenance classification travels with the renewal. Older recurring records without a stored classification use the type-appropriate default, including through coterm merging and final conversion.
Legacy-unlinked maintenance¶
Legacy-unlinked maintenance follows the same renewal chain. If it is still parentless when the pending order is converted, the successor remains active maintenance with no parent and retains the legacy-unlinked marker; LicenseTrack does not invent a parent link, mirror, or coverage relationship. The current predecessor is reread during conversion, so linking it while renewal sourcing is in progress makes the successor an ordinary linked maintenance record.
Coterm renewals¶
Repeated merges retain all earlier predecessor relationships. Shared quote evidence remains with unmerged sibling lines when needed. Remove or change any line-specific (Single) quote or procurement document to Shared before merging; coterm merge does not retarget line-specific evidence.
Coterm work combines eligible renewal lines into a shared successor term. Review the selected predecessors, quantity, dates, and commercial terms together before merging. Follow the procurement guide for the sourcing merge workflow and its eligibility rules.
Several terms on one purchase order¶
When one PO buys separate future entitlement periods, keep each period as its own sourcing line. Open a line for editing and use Term succession near the bottom: Add next term creates an editable successor line, while Set predecessors connects lines already in the same request. Several earlier lines can point to one combined future term; enter that term's quantity explicitly. Descriptions and quantities may change between terms.
The planned links remain editable after the lines move to one pending order. Final conversion checks the confirmed dates and creates the license records and their renewal links together. The Term chain in the License Details History section includes Upcoming successors and starts collapsed. Linked predecessors need no separate renewal action. All terms in a chain retain its LT reference; dates and immutable record IDs distinguish individual terms. On a consolidation, the combined term uses one primary chain reference and lists every predecessor.
An invoice uploaded during conversion for this kind of PO defaults to Single. Choose the year it belongs to. Shared remains available for evidence that applies to the whole order. Later invoice uploads on a linked term also default to Single.
Maintenance lines can form a planned chain of any length, such as three maintenance years bought together. Maintenance terms follow maintenance terms only. Every term supports the same license: a later term without its own parent inherits it from the term before. Only the term that covers today becomes the license's active maintenance at conversion. Each later term takes over on its own start date through a daily check, and the previous period moves to Coverage History. A maintenance renewal that starts in the future works the same way: it is linked at conversion and becomes active on its start date.
Purchase history and LT references¶
After conversion, the sourcing request leaves the active Sourcing Overview table and remains available through the History button. Sourcing history opens as a second read-only table below active sourcing work. It keeps the old request id, line id, quote evidence, supplier, pricing, and notes, and it can link forward to the related pending order.
After conversion to licenses, the pending order leaves the active Pending Orders table and remains available through the History button. Pending-order history is also read-only for record fields. It keeps the PO id, line ids, PO document, carried-forward quote context, invoice evidence, and links to the license records created from each line; permitted users can still download or remove evidence from the row action menu.
The renewed license's History section also shows the procurement trail when the renewal passed through LicenseTrack sourcing and pending orders. From there you can jump back to the historical sourcing item, then through to the historical PO, and finally back to the created license. This is useful when an old renewal is restarted months later and you need the previous quote, notes, or PO evidence for reference.
About the LT-Reference number
A renewal successor inherits the predecessor's complete LT reference, including its year. The reference identifies the entitlement chain, so several terms can share it. Use the immutable License Record ID to identify one exact record, and its dates and history to distinguish terms.