Approving invoices manually includes hidden costs and room for errors. An invoice approval tool can maximize savings and free up time for more important tasks!
VIDEO BLOG: Benefits of an Invoice Approval Tool
Telecom Invoice Auditing
Telecom invoice auditing has always been the cornerstone of a strong TEM program. It is the first thing that comes to mind to control telecom and mobile costs, though it is far from universally implemented. Many firms simply receive invoices, verify they are within a tolerable range of variance, and pay them. This is an expensive oversight – analyst research confirms that up to 15% of telecom invoices have errors. Not having a dedicated person or team to review invoices monthly for problems can create a big leak in the telecom budget. A leak you can plug.
Telecom Invoice Processing Delivers Phone Bill Consolidation
Huge not only in dollar value, but in sheer volume. Some firms have complex telecom environments including many locations, multiple vendors, and various services ranging from mobile to WAN. This can mean a lot of paper coming in, a responsibility that may make you want to hide in your office and pretend like you’re on vacation. For a year.
Why Telecom Invoice Processing Matters
Invoice detail is most often associated with cost allocation and a telecom auditing. User, usage and cost information is made more visible, so errors and overcharges can more easily be seen and corrected. Data can be entered and allocated to a degree of detail dictated by the individual client, as some may want more granular information available for reporting. Electronic invoice copies are also stored in their original layout, as a PDF or other desired format, for archiving and research needs. This creates a rich history of data for use over time, giving visibility to important trends and the distribution of costs throughout the firm.
Telecom & Wireless Management: Invoice Processing
In our series of posts on telecom management pain points, this one is a biggie. Most telecom managers get tired of dealing with invoice processing and payment. Invoices should really be audited every time, but even without that, there is still the matter of getting the invoices – either electronically or paper – GL coding everything, getting it approved, and then paid on time. Anything to keep Accounting is happy.
What goes into telecom invoice auditing?
As we discussed in our last post on telecom invoice processing, the first step in doing telecom invoices auditing – at least the way WE do it – is software. Why? Because the key to successful telecom invoice auditing is visibility.
Cursory Telecom Invoice Auditing: Software Tools Make it Easy
Telecom expense management software can be a useful tool in the process of identifying cursory audit items. The program can visually show you your invoice queue, reflecting legitimate invoices that are pushed through the tool, providing one month and six month cost trending information along with percentage variances.
Telecom Savings Case Study: Cursory Telecom Invoice Auditing
Want a good example of low hanging fruit? Cursory telecom invoice auditing. Whether you do it yourself via a web-based telecom expense management software like Clearview, or hire an outside TEM firm to do it for you, this is a first step in cleaning out your telecom closet. Cursory auditing just means identifying, flagging, and correcting easy-to-find issues during regular telecom invoice processing. In other words, actually LOOK at your bills and see what is wrong.
Telecom Tactic #4: Telecom Invoice Auditing – Wireline
This is where the rubber meets the road. Telecom invoice auditing. Every piece of paper that comes into your office from a carrier is a place to save money. Incorrect charges, setup fees you were never supposed to pay, items not billing to contract terms – there are a lot of reasons you are paying too much for your telecom services.
Practice Caution When Auditing Your Telecom Invoices
Since the break-up of the Bell companies in the early 80s, there have been many new complex telecom technologies, services and plans and a variety of telecom providers that have entered the telecom space. With these complexities, come opportunities as well as threats for telecom users. One of the threats that has come with divestiture has been inaccurate billing, usually caused by the use of legacy billing systems designed to handle a basic, simple mix of circuits and services, and utilizing codes that were developed by the Bell companies around those services.
Telecommunication Invoice: Start with the simple stuff
Telecom expense control – starts with the basics. Do you know the cost of processing only one invoice within your organization? What if you could offload the direct labor involved in processing telecommunication invoices, while reducing strategic business costs at the same time? If this is of interest to you, then you need to contact Valicom today for their best-in-class telecom expense control.