Executive Clarity · Reference

What you actually sign.

Nobody signs "an SAP contract". They sign an order form that incorporates five to nine other documents by reference, most of them hosted at a URL SAP controls. This is the stack, by deployment model.

In SAP's own description, a cloud contract has four building blocks: the order form, the cloud service description — a product-specific collection of supplement, service description guide, support schedule and SLA — the data processing agreement, and the general terms and conditions. The order form, DPA and GTC apply to any cloud service on the price list; the service description is what changes per product.

SAP ECC — classic on-premise

Perpetual licence + annual support

The Business Suite paper. A perpetual licence bought once, and a support contract that renews every year for as long as the system runs — which for ECC is measured in decades. Long relationships often sit on a negotiated master agreement from years ago rather than SAP's current standard GTC; finding that document is frequently the most valuable act in a review.

Signed

  • Order Form for on-premise software and support, with Schedule 1 (software list, metrics, quantities, licence fee, maintenance base, support percentage)
  • The master agreement — SAP's GTC for on-premise software, or in older relationships a negotiated licence and support agreement, as amended and sometimes novated over the years
  • Addenda and amendments to earlier order forms; termination addenda when licences are retired

Incorporated by reference

  • Software Use Rights / Use Terms — the named-user and package metrics
  • Support Schedule — Enterprise Support or Standard Support; Product Support for Large Enterprises is a separate arrangement
  • Data Processing Agreement, where personal data is processed under support
Where the money is
Schedule 1: the licence fee is paid once and forgotten; the maintenance base and the support percentage set every year that follows. Section 8 (Additional Terms) of the order form is where anything negotiated actually lives.
Watch
Indirect and digital access are measured at audit, not at signature — the exposure is built into the affiliate-use and named-user wording long before anyone reads it. And every referenced document incorporated "as in effect from time to time" is a term that did not exist when the order form was signed.
Terms that live in this stack

SAP S/4HANA — on-premise

Perpetual licence + annual support

The same document family as ECC — order form, Schedule 1, Use Rights, Support Schedule, GTC. What changes is the conversion: moving from ECC means retiring the old licences and their maintenance base and buying the new ones, and the documents that do that are where the money moves.

Signed

  • Order Form for on-premise software and support, with Schedule 1
  • Termination addendum retiring the ECC licences, with a conversion credit applied against the new purchase
  • Amendments to the master agreement where the conversion changes its scope

Incorporated by reference

  • Software Use Rights / Use Terms — S/4HANA metrics, including digital access as its own licence line
  • Support Schedule
  • Data Processing Agreement
  • GTC for on-premise software, unless a negotiated master agreement holds that slot
Where the money is
The conversion credit and the resulting maintenance base. Ask for the base after conversion, in writing, before signing — a discount on the new licence is irrelevant if the base it leaves behind makes it disappear within four years.
Watch
A conversion is the one moment the whole relationship is open. Rights won in the original master agreement can be silently lost if the new order form points at SAP's current standard GTC instead.
Terms that live in this stack

SAP Cloud ERP Private — RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition

Subscription

A subscription, not a licence. SAP's 2026 documents lead with the name SAP Cloud ERP Private and keep RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition alongside it — the same paper under both names. The customer signs one order form and inherits a stack of six to nine standard documents by reference, the largest stack in SAP contracting. The usage metric that determines the entire cost sits in the Service Description Guide, which is the document least likely to have been read.

Signed

  • Order Form for SAP Cloud Services, with the quote: subscription term, Full Use Equivalent quantity, fees, renewal mechanics
  • A conversion or cloud-extension addendum retiring on-premise licences and their maintenance base, where the customer is moving from ECC or S/4HANA on-premise
  • Where required, a regulated-industry annex signed alongside

Incorporated by reference

  • General Terms and Conditions for Cloud Services — or the Master Cloud Customer Agreement where one is in place
  • SAP Cloud ERP Private and RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition Supplement — the product-specific terms and the bundled services
  • Support Schedule for Cloud Services
  • Service Level Agreement for Private Cloud Edition Services and Tailored Option Services, alongside the SLA for Cloud Services
  • Data Processing Agreement for Cloud Services
  • Service Description Guide — metrics, sizing, bundled services; 133 pages in the 2026 edition
  • SAP AI Terms, and — where AI units are bought — the AI Services and AI Units Supplement with the AI Services List
  • Financial Services Annex and Cyber Security Annex, for regulated customers
Where the money is
The FUE quantity and the subscription term. FUE ratios are published standard terms and do not move; what moves is how many you buy, at what price, and what happens to volume and price at renewal.
Watch
Cloud commitments ratchet: volumes go up mid-term easily and never come down. Downward flex at renewal and price protection for growth are both obtainable and both rarely asked for. Confirm the customer has read the Service Description Guide — they usually have not.
Terms that live in this stack

GROW with SAP — S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

Subscription

The most standardised paper SAP produces. Public cloud is one system for everyone, so the terms are engineered to be uniform: a short stack, few annexes, and the least negotiating room of any model. The commercial conversation is about quantity, term and renewal — not about the documents.

Signed

  • Order Form for SAP Cloud Services, with the quote: subscription term, FUE quantity, fees

Incorporated by reference

  • General Terms and Conditions for Cloud Services — or the Master Cloud Customer Agreement where one is in place
  • SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and GROW with SAP Supplement — including the bundled services: digital access documents per contract year, Build Work Zone, Build Process Automation and others
  • Support Schedule for Cloud Services
  • Service Level Agreement for Cloud Services
  • Data Processing Agreement for Cloud Services
  • Service Use Descriptions — the public edition's counterpart of the Service Description Guide, where the FUE ratios and use packages are defined
  • SAP AI Terms
Where the money is
The FUE mix. One FUE equals thirty self-service users but only one advanced user, so a wrong assumption about the user mix changes the required quantity by an order of magnitude.
Watch
Spend negotiating capital on term, renewal notice and price protection. The standard documents will not move, and the SLA remedy matters more than the SLA percentage.
Terms that live in this stack

SAP Business Technology Platform — consumption

Cloud credits or pay-as-you-go

BTP is bought as a spend commitment rather than a product list: cloud credits committed for a period and drawn down by whichever services are activated. It sits alongside any of the other models and is often signed in the same order form as a RISE or GROW subscription.

Signed

  • Order Form for SAP Cloud Services — the cloud credit commitment, its period and the contracted discount; or a pay-as-you-go order with no commitment

Incorporated by reference

  • General Terms and Conditions for Cloud Services — or the Master Cloud Customer Agreement
  • Supplemental Terms for SAP Business Technology Platform
  • SAP Business Technology Platform Service Description Guide — the consumable services and their metrics
  • Support Schedule, Service Level Agreement and Data Processing Agreement for Cloud Services
  • SAP AI Terms; the AI Services and AI Units Supplement and the AI Services List where AI units are part of the commitment
Where the money is
Unused credits expire with the period. The commitment level sets the discount; the burn rate is the customer's to manage.
Watch
Credits are a forecast dressed as a contract. Size the commitment on measured consumption, not on the architecture slide.
Terms that live in this stack

Master Cloud Customer Agreement (MCCA)

A framework agreement with a standardised set of terms that applies across most of the SAP cloud portfolio, so terms are not negotiated per service. Subscriptions are then placed with an MCCA order form; a professional-services schedule covers standardised services. Customers request it through SAP for Me and sign electronically.

For a customer on an MCCA, "the GTC" for a new cloud order is the MCCA, and the negotiating moment was the MCCA itself — anything not won there is not re-opened per order form.

The document types

Deal documents — specific to one customer

These are the ones with signatures on them.

Order Form
The transaction itself: what is bought, how much, on which metric, from when. Everything else in the stack is standard; this is what this customer agreed.
Schedule 1 / Pricing Schedule
The software or service list with metrics and quantities, and the pricing summary. On-premise it carries the licence fee, the maintenance base and the support percentage — read it twice.
Addendum / Amendment
Changes to a named order form — not to the relationship as a whole.
Termination Addendum
Retires licences, usually alongside a conversion credit; removes their maintenance base.
Statement of Work (SOW) / Change Request
Services: scope, deliverables, acceptance, rates — and any change to them.
Quote / Quote details
Pre-contractual pricing. Not binding, but it shows how the number was built up.
Settlement / Pre-approval
Resolves a dispute or a compliance exposure; carries the release language.

Standard documents — the same for everyone

Hosted by SAP, incorporated by reference. Binding without a signature.

General Terms and Conditions (GTC)
The master terms: liability, IP, confidentiality, termination, governing law. Separate editions for on-premise software and for cloud services.
Software Use Rights / Use Terms
Per-product and per-metric use rights and restrictions for on-premise software — where the licence metrics are defined.
Support Schedule / Support Policy
What support is, its levels and response times, and for on-premise what it costs.
Supplemental Terms (Product Supplement)
Product-specific terms for a cloud service — RISE private edition, public edition, SuccessFactors, Ariba, Analytics Cloud, BTP.
Service Description Guide (SDG)
Usage metrics, system sizing and the services bundled into a cloud subscription. The long document nobody prints — and the one the metric lives in.
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
The availability commitment for a cloud service and the credits payable when it is missed.
Data Processing Agreement (DPA)
Personal data: roles, security measures, sub-processors, transfer mechanisms.
Financial Services Annex
Regulatory requirements for regulated customers — the common case where the DPA and GTC are actually amended.
Cyber Security Annex
Security obligations beyond the standard, common in financial services.
SAP AI Terms
Apply to every AI technology inside a cloud service: acceptable use and the AI Code of Conduct, ownership of output (customer owns it, but it may not qualify for IP protection), no indemnity for output, the Group 1 / Group 2 lifecycle with six months' removal notice, customer responsibility for agentic AI, and the training opt-out. A separate standard document since 2025.
SAP AI Services and AI Units Supplement
The consumption contract for SAP AI: usage metric Capacity Unit, units pooled across everything bought from SAP, drawn down by a per-service conversion factor, expiring unused at the end of each availability period.
SAP AI Services List
The price list behind AI units: every eligible AI service with its unit of measure, block size and AI-unit conversion factor. SAP updates it; new entries carry the then-current AI Terms.
EU Data Act terms
A standard document in the cloud GTC family addressing the EU Data Act obligations; published 2026, not yet reviewed here.

Order of precedence

Every order form carries a Referenced Documents clause listing the incorporated stack in order of precedence. It is the most useful paragraph in the agreement: it settles every later argument about which document wins. A typical on-premise order, highest authority first, is shown here — for cloud services read the clause in the order form itself, because the order varies by product.

  1. Order Form, including Schedule 1
  2. Software Use Rights / Use Terms
  3. Support Schedule
  4. Data Processing Agreement
  5. General Terms and Conditions

Two checks every time: is the customer's own negotiated master agreement in the stack, or has SAP's current standard quietly taken its slot? And are the referenced documents pinned to a version, or incorporated "as in effect from time to time" — which means agreeing to terms that do not yet exist? See Order of Precedence and Referenced Documents.

Version stamps — how to identify any standard document

SAP prints a version stamp in the header or footer of every standard template. Read it as <template family> <region>.v.<month>-<year>. Region codes seen include enGLOBAL, enEMEAN, enAPJ, enGB, enUK, enIT, enLATAM, DUAL.

Order Form for SAP On Premise Software and Support (Direct)  enEMEAN.v.<m>-<yyyy>
RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition Supplement       enGLOBAL.v.<m>-<yyyy>
Service Level Agreement for SAP Cloud Services                enGLOBAL.v.<m>-<yyyy>
Data Processing Agreement for Cloud Services                  enGB.v.<m>-<yyyy>

The stamp tells you which standard the customer actually incorporated, and whether a document in the stack is an SAP standard form at all. A stamp that matches nothing published is either a newer template than anything seen before or not an SAP document — both worth saying out loud. The examples show the format, not a current edition: verify the document you hold against what SAP publishes at the SAP Trust Center.

Sources

Every document family on this page is published by SAP. These are the canonical routes and the editions current when this page was last checked; editions change, so the document you hold decides.

Before you rely on any of this. Document families and typical stacks, not a specific deal. SAP's standard documents change and vary by region and product: the stack in front of you is defined by the Referenced Documents clause of your own order form, and the current editions are published at the SAP Trust Center.

This index was generated with AI assistance from SAP contract vocabulary that is publicly available through search, and reviewed for plausibility, not completeness. General guidance only — it cannot guarantee that every document in your stack is covered. Verify before you rely on it.

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