Monday, April 12, 2010

Telecom Expense Management (TEM) - 3 Steps to Auditing Your Bills


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One of the first steps in any program of Telecom Expense Management is to control the bills. The way this happens is common for a consultant to a bill revising the telecommunications giving them a vision to compare invoices and orders, prices and see if you are billed correctly. The auditors telecommunications usually a percentage of the results of their taxes. The control is fairly simple value proposition - it costs you nothing, if the auditor found, TelecommunicationsSomething.

But what if the auditors do not find something, something big? You will be able to get your CFO for a payment of a commission for the large auditor to search for a billing error on your watch? This could be an unpleasant situation. To ensure that nothing too great, will be determined during an inspection, it is possible an internal review of your own behavior Telecom.

Follow these three steps to make a thorough revision of Telecom and will be on track to reduce telecommunications costsand engaging an auditor for a more detailed review with confidence.

1. When was your contract negotiated last? This is important because the older your contract, them more chances for error and opportunity for rate reductions. If your contract is more than 3 years old, renegotiating or looking for alternative providers may yield considerable savings. Auditors will sometimes include these savings in their findings, so you will be better off determining whether your rates are competitive now. Call a telecom consultant (one who does not work on contingency) for a quick benchmark for rates. This will give you a good idea where the market is and whether a savings opportunity exists.

2. Determine where most of your spending is on your bill. If you have considerable long-distance usage charges, focus on your rate per minute. If you have higher monthly recurring charge, you will focus on the cost per service per location. You can do a quick effective toll charge rate per minute Analysis with summary reports on the bill. If your effective rate per minute is significantly higher than the benchmark, or some tax rates have to play just does not make sense, you have just identified an area of further investigation. Drag your order and make sure the contract is close to your effective interest rate. Sometimes, one condition of a contract discount rate. Make sure your proper discount and call your Account Manager to confirm the basic interest rate (oftenreferred to as the "tariff rate" even though most rates have been de-tariffed).

On the monthly recurring side, do an analysis on a per circuit basis - does the average make sense? Be sure to include only like services, T1s should not be mixed with DSL or T3s. Again, getting a benchmark from an industry consultant is easy and can help you quickly determine if you are in the ball park.

3. Look at your toll and local traffic mix. Do you have lots of switched traffic that might be consolidated on a dedicated system? (Incidentally, this is much easier with competitive carriers!) Do you have toll-free services that can be moved? Dedicated changed, in general, less than half the comparable rate. Therefore, the task of consolidating the traffic toll on dedicated services highly profitable.

Once you spend over large areas on your phone bill at a high level overview, you can confidently conduct a thorough examination by a qualifiedauditor. The audit may still find issues with the services you reviewed, but the findings should be smaller and will be in areas that require specific expertise.

Using a telecom expense management (TEM) system can keep your telecommunications spending in check over the long-term, reducing the need for audits and providing a comfort level that your telecommunications bills are accurate.

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