Business telecom expense management software has arrived.
As a professional telecommunications audit professional, I’ve been bucking the Telecommunications Expense Management (TEM) software trend for many years now. But lately, I’ve come around as I’ve seen the magic and technological wizardry and ultimate cost savings first hand that TEM truly offers. I am sold on TEM and I’m ready to tell the world that TEM has finally arrived and is truly ready for prime time. As I’ve reviewed and sat in on various TEM presentations and as a CEO of a company myself, and have now actually used many of the TEM software applications, I must say I’m now convinced that TEM software helps me better manage company costs and reduce expense. If it is good enough for me, it’s good enough for my telecom audit clients. Perhaps we should even change the name from telecom expense management software to telecom audit software.
TEM software offers value and allows for automated telecom audit and telecom service reviews which ultimately results in significant cost savings for many kinds of businesses. TEM software can help businesses not only save money on their telecommunications services but also allow for far better control over invoices. Control is so very important because telecom billing across the large business enterprise is so complicated and many enterprises have lost the ability to consistently have control over telecommunications expense. Cost savings and control was something that traditionally only human auditors could accomplish, however, automated TEM software tools compliment the skills of the human auditor.
Does this mean that the manual telecommunications audit is dead and that telecom auditors are a dying breed? No, however, the further that I delve into what TEM has to offer and see the benefits, the more that it is evident that both the manual audit and automated TEM tools can co-exist and actually benefit and compliment one another. In fact, traditional auditors can still add value to the TEM marketplace and like myself, they can successfully offer TEM software applications to their clients because it finds errors that a human auditor can easily miss.
Here is a breakdown of what TEM software now offers businesses and how it can help with the telecommunications audit process:
- Ability to reap huge telecom cost savings and establish control over telecom services and billing
- Effectively Identify, track and file billing disputes
- *Robust reporting package
- *Centralization, simplification of the telecommunications billing network
- *Online access to the program from anywhere
- *Software backup of TEM program
- *Allocate costs to all or some users and cost centers
- *Successfully audit a wide range of telecom services effectively
- *Compliment a manual telecom audit
- *All billing media can be loaded into the program
- *Best pricing advantage across the enterprise
- *Increased speed of processing telecommunications invoices, approval and audit
- *Increased Budgeting effectiveness
- *Better ordering processes for new services
- *Telecom Billing interpretation and review in foreign languages
Do you like what you’re reading? Want to try TEM software and a telecommunications audit at no out of pocket cost to your company? Contact the telecom audit pros, or call 1-888-487-5326.
How have TEM software vendors accomplished the feat of producing a product that can perform all of this magic from a remote server? First, the speed of delivery and processing invoices and formatting the data into an understandable format and reporting form for the end user. TEM utilizes Electronic Data Interface (EDI) technology which allows a single large telecom invoice or many invoices to be downloaded from the carrier and processed for error review the very day it is created! EDI allows a client’s phone bills to be sent directly from the telecom carrier to a server that the TEM software resides on so that it can be quickly processed and accessed by the client. This allows for quicker a processing and breakdown of those hard to understand phone invoices and faster reporting of errors and tracking and notification of problems. Ultimately, this gives us all more immediate control over our telecom costs across the enterprise. Also, not only do we get immediate useable data, unlike a complicated telephone bill, the TEM software format is much more easily understood. Again, it comes down to more control.
Some TEM vendors have also developed techniques to allow processing of all kinds of billing media, from paper invoices, CDROM billing formats and even faxed invoices to be optically scanned and utilized for TEM applications for those invoices that cannot be accessed through EDI. Although, the majority of carrier billing systems today can provide EDI interface there are still a few that cannot. Therefore, some TEM providers have made provisions for input of these kinds of invoices into the software for processing. This allows the TEM provider to process everything with no exceptions and it allows for centralized control over the billing enterprise.
Moreover, TEM applications can manage everything from directly notifying the carriers of problems to accepting and processing new orders and making sure that contract rates and tariffs are applied correctly across all services.
TEM is a dependable way to help dramatically cut many kinds of costs, and it makes sense also that TEM can also be utilized as part of a contingency fee-based business model for existing audit companies that offer TEM as part of the package to their clients. Why? Because the savings from implementing a telecom expense management plan can actually produce enough cost savings to pay for the program.
Another value that TEM brings us is the ability to manage telecom over wide regions and large numbers of services. TEM allows the auditor to better scrutinize many more services, from long distance to local, from wireless to data, from PBX and VOIP maintenance service contracts to calling cards. This was previously all but impossible for even a large group of telecom auditors for client companies who were billing millions of dollars a month in telecommunications services.
Finally, the reporting function of TEM is absolutely phenomenal. For example, if you need budget numbers and breakdown by cost centers (we always do) I now have immediate information and not just a summary of the total telecom spend across the enterprise. I can now break spend down by company telecom services, geographical location or cost center in a matter of minutes instead of days. I can break down telecom spend data in so many ways now and so can you. Invoice error and exception reports are available with a keystroke each month. Once you locate the errors, you can send off a email note to the carrier with your refund request, all in the same process.
In summary, things usually change for the better and so has traditional telecom auditing and TEM. It is time to examine TEM for your enterprise and use this great tool to compliment the skills we as telecom auditors have honed so well over the years.
Are you interested in contingency-fee based telecommunications audit services and/or TEM software applications for your company? BottaBoom now offers automated TEM software and audit cost savings for its clients. Schedule a free telecommunications expense management demonstration today for your business. Contact us at this link: Contact the telecom audit pros, or call 1-888-487-5326.
Tags: Telecom Audit, telecom cost savings, telecommunications audit
