Most companies own a few software subscriptions that more people need than there are seats. A PDF editor with two licences and six people who sign contracts. A design tool the marketing team shares. An AI assistant on a team plan that finance wants for a week at month end.
The usual fix is a password in a chat group. It works on the first day and causes trouble every day after: nobody knows who is using the account, the password outlives the people who knew it, and when the vendor sends a verification code it lands in one person's inbox while someone else waits for it.
There is a better way to do this, and it does not need an IT department. This guide walks through how to lend a software licence to an employee for a set time, let them use it without handing over the password, and get the seat back when they are done.
Step 1: Write down what you actually own
You cannot lend what you cannot see. Start with a list of every subscription the company pays for, and for each one record a handful of facts.
That last field matters most, because it decides how you lend the app. An app where each person has their own seat is lent by adding them in the vendor's console. A shared login is lent by giving someone access to the login for a while. A licence key is lent by giving it to one person and taking it back when they are done.
In Wurxa this list is the software register under Assets, next to the laptops and phones your team already tracks. Each app carries its seats, cost, renewal date, owner and access method, so the register answers the question "who has what" for software the same way it does for hardware.
Step 2: Lend for a set time, not for ever
Most shared software is needed for a job, not a career. Someone needs the PDF editor while a tender is being prepared, or the design tool while the summer campaign is built. Lend it for that long.
Pick a period when you hand the seat over: 3 days, a week, a month, until the subscription renews, or open-ended for the people who really need it every day. Writing the end date down at the start is what makes the seat come back. Without it, a seat lent for a week is still lent in March.
In Wurxa you choose the employee and the period, and the app appears on the employee's My apps tile with the time left. When the time is up, the seat returns on its own and is free for the next person. The employee is reminded when less than a day is left, so the end never comes as a surprise.
Two rules keep this fair when seats are short.
Step 3: Share access, not the password
A password sent in a message is a password you no longer control. It sits in chat history, gets forwarded, gets written on a sticky note, and still works long after the person has moved team or left the company.
The safer pattern is to keep the password in one place and let the person holding the seat use it only while their access lasts.
This is how Wurxa handles a shared login. The employee opens My apps, sees the username ready to copy, and can reveal the password for 30 seconds. Every reveal and copy is recorded with the time and the person, and HR and managers see who holds the app without ever seeing the secret.
The admin decides per app whether a reveal is allowed at all, and every reveal is recorded with who, when and on which device.
Step 4: Plan for the verification code
Many apps now ask for a one-time code when someone signs in from a new device. On a shared account that code goes to whoever set the account up, which is usually the person who is not at their desk when it is needed.
Decide in advance how a code reaches the person using the seat.
Wurxa covers both. For authenticator-app accounts, the live code shows on the employee's tile while access is active. For emailed or texted codes, the employee taps Request code, the admin is alerted, and the code they paste appears on the employee's tile for 10 minutes.
Step 5: When someone leaves, take every seat back
Offboarding is where shared software leaks. The laptop is handed in at the exit interview; the design tool login stays in the leaver's head and their browser.
Make returning software part of the same step as returning devices.
In Wurxa, deactivating an employee returns every software seat they hold, alongside the laptop and phone listed on their profile. If they ever saw a shared password, Wurxa asks the admin to change it, so nothing walks out of the door in someone's memory.
Step 6: Keep a record you can show
When a vendor asks how many people use an account, or a manager asks who was signed in last Tuesday, the answer should take seconds, not a hunt through chat history.
Keep a trail of every assignment, return, reveal, copy and sign-in, with the time and the person. It protects the company and it protects the employee, who can show they used the account only while it was lent to them.
A short checklist
Do it in Wurxa, free
Software & Subscriptions is a free module for every Wurxa workspace, with no per-seat or per-user fee. It sits beside Wurxa Assets, so a person's laptop, phone and software are handled in one place, and employees find their apps in the same Wurxa app they already use for leave and payslips.
See how it works on the software license management page, or start free and lend your first seat today.
Put the workflow into practice.
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