Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform are powerful, but they're also easy to grow without anyone keeping an eye on the whole picture. A new starter gets a licence, a quick flow gets built to fix a problem, a field gets added for one report. Each change makes sense on its own. A few years later, nobody's quite sure what you're paying for or what still matters.
None of the checks below need a partner or special tools. If you have admin access, you can do them this week.
1. You're paying for licences nobody uses
This is the most common leak and usually the easiest to fix. Licences get assigned when people join and are rarely reviewed when they leave, change role or stop using the system.
It also happens the other way round: people who only need to look things up, or update a few records, are on a full licence because that's what everyone was given at the start. Microsoft offers lighter licences, such as Team Member, for some of those users, depending on what they actually do.
Check it in 10 minutes
- In the Microsoft 365 admin centre, list who has each Dynamics 365 or Power Platform licence.
- Compare that list with who's actually signing in and using the system, and with your list of current staff.
- Note anyone who has left, hasn't signed in for months, or only ever views records.
The fix
Remove licences from leavers straight away, and make reviewing them part of your leavers process. For light users, check with your licensing provider whether a lighter licence covers what they do before you switch anyone.
2. Your storage is full of clutter
Dataverse, the database under Dynamics 365, comes with a set amount of storage. When you go over it, you're expected to buy more. Plenty of organisations pay for extra capacity when a lot of what's stored is clutter: old email attachments, long-finished system jobs, years of audit history nobody looks at, and test data.
Check it in 10 minutes
- Open the capacity report in the Power Platform admin center and see how close you are to your limits for database, file and log storage.
- Look at which tables are the biggest. If they're attachments, audit logs or system jobs rather than your customer data, that's a sign.
The fix
Agree how long you need to keep audit history and old attachments, then clean up what's beyond that, for example with a scheduled bulk delete. Do it carefully, and check with whoever owns compliance before deleting anything.
3. Your Power Automate flows belong to people, not the business
Flows are often built by whoever had the problem, in their own name. That works until they leave, their account is switched off, and the flow quietly stops. Nobody notices until a customer asks why they never got an email, or an invoice didn't go out.
The cost isn't on a licence bill. It's the hours spent finding out what broke, fixing data by hand, and rebuilding something nobody documented.
Check it in 10 minutes
- List your flows and who owns each one. Look for any owned by a single person, especially anyone who has left.
- Check run history for flows that fail regularly or haven't run in months.
- Ask: if this flow stopped tomorrow, how would we find out?
The fix
Move important flows into solutions, give them a co-owner or a service account, and turn on failure alerts. Switch off anything nobody can explain.
4. Changes go straight into your live system
If customisations are made directly in production, every change is a small gamble. Something unrelated breaks, a field disappears from a form, or an update from Microsoft clashes with something built years ago. Each surprise costs time, and if you use a partner, it costs billable hours.
It also means nobody can easily say what has been built, which makes every future change slower and more expensive.
Check it in 10 minutes
- Ask whoever makes changes: do they use solutions, and is there a separate test environment?
- Look at how many custom fields, forms and views exist that nobody can explain.
The fix
Make changes in a solution, test them in a separate environment, then move them to live. Once that's in place, plan a tidy up to remove what's no longer used.
5. Your team keeps spreadsheets on the side
This is the one that shows up on nobody's bill. If people track things in spreadsheets alongside the CRM, you're paying for a system that isn't the single source of truth. Reports don't match, data gets entered twice, and decisions get made on numbers nobody fully trusts.
Spreadsheets are usually a symptom: the CRM is missing a field, a view is too slow, or a process doesn't fit how people actually work.
Check it in 10 minutes
- Ask your team what they track outside the CRM, and why.
- Check whether duplicate detection is switched on, and how many duplicates are in your main tables.
The fix
Treat the list of spreadsheets as your improvement plan. Each one points to something the CRM should be doing. Fix the reasons people avoid it, then clean up duplicates so the reports are worth trusting.
Want a quick score for your own setup? The free health check covers all five of these areas in 10 questions. It takes about 3 minutes, needs no sign-up, and gives you practical fixes for anything that needs work.
In short
- Licences: remove leavers, review light users.
- Storage: clear out attachments, audit history and system jobs you don't need.
- Flows: give them shared ownership and failure alerts.
- Changes: use solutions and a test environment.
- Spreadsheets: find out why people use them, and fix the cause.
If you'd rather have an independent look at the whole setup, that's what my fixed-price Dynamics 365 and Power Platform audit is for. It covers all five areas in a week, with a written report ranked by effort and impact and a walkthrough call.