SaaS-based Invoice Auditing Seen as Key to Improving Telecom Cost Assurance

Feb. 24, 2011 - PRLog -- EFFORT OF THE POCONOS, PENNSYLVANIA – Audit of invoices and approval of payments is a daunting task for service providers who receive hundreds of wholesale invoices each month. Thousands, sometimes millions of line-items need to be verified across dozens of bill formats making it a very complex job.
 
Software vendors have been offering automated solutions for telecom cost assurance for several years now, yet many telecoms are still working from Excel spreadsheets and paperbound processes. According to Technology Research Institute (TRI), an analyst firm that's been tracking the revenue assurance software market since 2003, automation is crucial to maximize operational efficiencies and drive down costs.

James Buttafuoco, founder and chief programmer, of Contact Telecom says, “Companies who don’t embrace change will sooner or later go out of business. Because there’s a competitor out there who has embraced change and is improving their systems. Coherent business processes, supported by automation, will enable that competitor to make informed decisions and that agility will allow them to leapfrog operators who don’t understand their business costs.”

Here are some highlights from the interview providing insight on how Contact Telecom’s Billing Data Analyzer helps in cost-assurance automation:

On SaaS solution for Cost Assurance:
“The system should support cost management on an individual invoice level, near real time. SaaS allows you to get a best-in-class solution without having any IT shop to deal with nor any database expertise. But SaaS doesn’t magically solve your problems. You still need to take the initiative and work the system to find gaps in your costs.”

On challenges faced when implementing the solution with a new client:
“Our biggest challenge is managing the rollout where the client’s manager may want to implement BDA, but the staff is resistant to change. The staff is comfortable with old habits and current processes. They’ve always managed their costs in Excel and they’re unwilling to move up to something better.”

On dealing with tier-2 carriers:
“It really depends on how good the invoices are. The Bells of the world are the old pros at the wholesale game and produce a readable bill to the BOS/BDT standard. The inter-change carriers (IXCs), on the other hand, are not regulated, so they were not forced to provide comprehensive billing. When we work with a client to convert their paper invoices to electronic format, we have conversations with the wholesale vendor to understand their invoice formats, and devise the best strategy to automate.”

The complete interview with James Buttafuoco is located on the TRI website at http://raround.com/automated_self_audit.asp

About Technology Research Institute
Founded in 1994, Technology Research Institute (TRI) is a market research and consulting firm that specializes in the areas of telecom revenue assurance and OSS/BSS software and services. For further information, visit www.technology-research.com or Tel: +1 570-620-2320.

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Revenue Assurance Roundtable is a free, peer-to-peer community where RA experts share their knowledge to stay on the cutting edge of a telecom business. It is a service of market analyst firm, Technology Research Institute (TRI).