Telecommunications Bill Audit & Carrier Review

Telecommunications billing is an AP "special case". In general, we follow the same audit and review procedure as our payables audit, with a keen eye to the provisioning, billing, and contractual practices that are peculiar to the telecommunications industry. Telesolv has over 30 years of combined experience in the telecommunications billing industry, and we understand the myriad industry problems that make it difficult to bill telecommunications services accurately.

Most organizations today are purchasing a wide variety of telecommunications services.  Each type of service has unique pricing arrangements based on tariffs, standard pricing tables, or negotiated contracts.  When the complex structure of taxes and surcharges is added to the mix, it becomes increasingly difficult to validate charges on a monthly basis.  Rarely do in-house audit teams possess the necessary range of knowledge, resources or time to validate each invoice.  Thousands dollars in overcharges and other refundable billing errors may have occurred on your telecom bills in just the past year.  Telesolv's telecommunications bill audit process examines each of your monthly telecommunications bills in a number of ways, all with the objective of identifying & correcting errors, then retrieving overpayments.  Our major auditing services are outlined below.

Telecommunications Services Inventory Creation and Validation
A company’s telecommunications inventory is made up of many different voice and data circuits.  The records validation ensures that the circuits being billed are actually in place.  We use a variety of approaches to records validation depending upon which telecom services your company has.  In some instances, an on-site physical circuit inventory is conducted.

Carrier Contractual Compliance
Telecom services contracts often contain ambiguous language that is open to a variety of interpretations.  During the Telecom Audit, our auditors  review the contract language in detail to ensure that your company is receiving the committed contract pricing.  The majority of legacy carrier billing systems were not designed to handle the increasing complex pricing structures negotiated by sales personnel, making billing errors an inevitable by-product of the sales process.

Carrier Tariff/Table Pricing Compliance
Telecom services contracts often refer to rates that appear in a standard pricing table or in a  published tariff on file with a state or federal regulatory agency.  For services without a contract, rates based solely upon these tables or tariffs typically apply.  Telesolv will identify which services are billed on table or tariff rates, determine which prices apply, and verify these prices against the table or tariff in effect at the time of the audit.

Likelihood of Errors
It has been our experience that errors in telecommunications billing for a medium to large size business or organization range from 10% to 30% of total monthly billing.  Due to the complicated rate structures and the myriad of surcharges and taxes, even a company with a vigorous bill verification process is vulnerable.  Given these percentages, a few months of overcharges can have a significant impact on your bottom line.