Telecom Expense Management - Invoice Receipt

Telecom Expense Management’s core processes:
Invoice receipt, automatic auditing and dispute management

ProfitLink begins each TEM implementation by building an online relational database of our Client’s inventory of telecom services along with their associated rates and contract terms. ProfitLink then works with our Clients’ telecom providers to have monthly invoices sent to our secure operations center.

ProfitLink receives invoices in EDI, CD and paper formats and loads into our TEM solution. The solution first checks to see if the detail charges on the invoice (down to individual call records) sum to the summary charges.  If all of the charges do not add up, a trouble ticket is placed with the telecom carrier. ProfitLink performs additional checks to ensure that the remittance address and account numbers match the Client’s information in the ProfitLink database.

	Invoice receipt, automatic auditing and dispute management process:
	(Click for larger image)

90% of the Client invoices we load in our TEM solution are in EDI format. For paper invoices, ProfitLink uses Optical Invoice Recognition technology to convert the invoice information into numerical information and load it into the TEM solution. Wherever possible, bill charges are allocated to individual lines. The industry standard for paper invoices is to scan and load an image of the invoice summary page and convert the summary charges into numerical format. This level of detail is inadequate to perform the kind of rigorous, automatic, monthly inventory and rate audit that ProfitLink’s customers demand.

ProfitLink’s uniquely powerful technology allows us to automatically audit invoices according to more than 300 Client-defined audit rules at the level of individual lines, features and long distance minutes of use every month.  Because of its ability to parse unique service descriptions from both EDI and paper invoices, our solution audits every line, every feature and every minute of use and their corresponding charges every month by comparing each item of invoice detail to the Client’s active service inventory and the correct rate for the service.

The savings are in the details:  Automatic monthly audits at the
service description level mean larger savings for ProfitLink Clients

This higher degree of precision and automation allows ProfitLink Clients to realize larger expense reductions more quickly and at less cost. The industry standard is to compare the current month’s invoice total to last month’s invoice total to identify large variances. The weakness of this methodology is that it identifies only larger errors and it requires time consuming and expensive manual audits using the old fashioned “stare and compare” method on a regular basis to deliver the savings that come from identifying and correcting the numerous small, hidden exceptions on a typical telecom invoice. 

If an exception is identified by the automatic audit, it is flagged for investigation by a ProfitLink analyst (or Client personnel). If the exception turns out to be a legitimate inventory item, rate or change, the analyst can clear the exception. ProfitLink’s TEM solution then learns not to flag the exception next month.

Many exceptions, once they are investigated, are disputable. If this is the case, the analyst uses ProfitLink’s TEM solution to create a dispute, quantify the amount of credit or refund demanded, transmit the dispute to the carrier via e-mail and track the status of the dispute to resolution.