Bills can tell you a lot about what services you use and how much each service costs. Businesses often look to lower overall payments, but as enterprise’s telecom networks become more complex, this can be difficult to accomplish. There are three telecom expenses that you may be missing which can impact organizations.
ONE. Recurring Payments
Many telecom vendors have the option to design services to automatically renew and withdraw payments. This may come standard with a product or service, but businesses may not realize it until they get a better look at their bills. At times, organizations may even continually pay for a service they aren’t using simply because it’s a recurring payment. Market Realist Contributor Ray Sheffer noted that it will be important to understand the recurring costs of your particular environment. Telecom expense management can track recurring costs per vendor and identify what solutions aren’t being utilized or don’t add much value.
TWO. Interest Fees
Service contracts have strict payment cycles with stipulations on consequences for late payments. As No Jitter explained, many businesses get their invoices within 20-23 days of the due date, which might not be enough time to process the payment for some organizations. Many contracts attach interest on past due amounts and stipulate service suspension for 5-10 days for failure to pay. These issues along with dispute negotiations and corrections can rack up expenses that could have easily been avoided.
THREE. Simple Mistakes
Due to the complexity and volume of bills that most organizations receive, mistakes can be right in front of you hiding in plain sight.
They can quickly become a major “hidden” expense despite their recent growth spurt. Perhaps your organization obtained a trial of a service and the vendor continued the service for full price after the initial period was over. Also, there could be errors with discontinued solutions or lines that haven’t been accurately reflected. It is important to not only identify these issues, but also get them addressed and resolved quickly.
TEM solutions provide reporting and auditing tools to quickly sort through invoices and detect any suspicious expenses. Organizations can use this information to eliminate additional hidden costs over time and reduce payments. With this type of solution, simple mistakes can be fixed and avoided entirely while determining areas where funding can be cut.
Telecom bills for an organization can be particularly challenging to navigate, as many businesses have different services from different vendors to analyze. Complexity of this nature can make it difficult to find costly telecom expenses that are hiding in plain sight like interest on late payments, recurring costs and simple billing errors. A TEM solution keeps accurate inventory of all telecom hardware, software and services across providers, ensuring that all costs are being monitored on a granular level.
