Telecommunications is one of the most difficult spend categories to manage. Companies lose 12 – 17% of what they spend on telecommunications as a result of unorganized telecom expense management
Source: Aberdeen Group
Auditing Your Voice, Data, and Cable Invoices
Today, according to recent studies over 75% of invoices for voice, data, or internet are incorrectly charged to customers. The most common being surcharges, questionable tariff filings, pricing negotiated agreement charges, renewal with a service provider, these are some of the most difficult expenditures to manage. Many audit specialists will not only capture a clear view of your company’s potential spending issues, they can identify carrier billing errors and assist your management team to recover over-payments as a result. The approach should be to work to establish best practices within your organization for managing your current and future expenses in the future.
Auditing Errors in line items on Invoices
Errors in line items appear regularly when you see the word “other charges and credits.” These could be one time or monthly recurring charges, refunds are incorrect many times, or just rate increases the supplier decides should be passed on. These charges, in many cases, could be used to terminate your current agreement providing you or your management catch them. You must notify the supplier timely and obtain a release on your termination charges. Facility malfunctions many times can place former or future charges on your invoices. Here are some of the most common are as follows:
- Inventory or agreement discrepancies
- Difference in term or promotion charges
- Unauthorized service enhancements
Hidden charges for out of area calling or overflow
Some of the most costly can be:
- Incorrect tax charges passed to the customer
- Transfer in manual input errors
- Charges for incomplete calls
- Double invoicing of services
Expending time, energy, and money to ensure accuracy in your supplier relationships can be a challenge. You can understand the value to you and your organizations in savings falling directly to the bottom line. We can help by using our audit experts having the right tools to implement regular monitoring of your organization’s billing and performance for these types of charges and can implement the necessary controls to enhance visibility to see and document billing errors.
The knowledge of what errors to look for is the key. At DP Access, we are specialists in voice, data, and cable industry knowledge. We view many invoices daily for errors. If you should need assistance please feel free to contact us. We would be pleased to review your organization invoices for these types of potential billing errors.
Henry J. Garcia