Call Accounting Benefits to Consider
August 22, 2013
By Susan J. Campbell
TMCnet Contributing Editor
As important as the typical call can be in the office environment, it still costs money. The more calls the organization makes, the higher the cost at the end of the billing period. When all calls are necessary, the cost is absorbed. When costs are incurred due to inactive lines, obsolete devices and plans not in use, it’s time to take advantage of call accounting. Such software delivers several significant benefits to the organization:
Data Capture
The software supporting call accounting provides metrics for telephony functions such as toll fraud alerts, unnecessary contracts, traffic analysis, network management, obsolete devices, E911 notification and even cost allocation. All of this data is captured according to the level of the user or the needs of the specific department.
Transparency
In all, call accounting can capture and report on the type of call, the origin, date, time, duration and the number dialed. The data captured is then analyzed so as to generate reports needed for complete transparency in to communication costs for an organization.
Cost Reduction
A reduction in the total telecom costs for the organization is often a key motivator toward implement call accounting. In many cases, the application can reduce total telecom spending by as much as 40 percent, simply by highlighting abuse and misuse. Such programs can also discover billing errors and increase productivity through greater efficiency in the workforce and the network.
Complete Monitoring
Telephony systems and habits that aren’t monitored consistently tend to have excessive charges associated with them, particularly for specialty numbers, directory services, personal calls and overseas calls. A robust call accounting system can pinpoint calls to individual extensions to ensure accountability. In fact, simply knowing the company plans to put in an accounting platform that will monitor use is likely to curb misuse by as much as 10 percent.
Heightened Security
Suspicious activity is likely to continue as long as no one is looking. It’s important to monitor fraudulent, suspicious and malicious behavior. Likewise, it’s important that calls to emergency services or even specific calling patterns that indicate a security breach should be tracked and the authorized personnel notified as necessary.
ISI (News - Alert) offers its Infortel Select, a Call Accounting and Reporting application that supports the collection and processing of Call Detail Records (CDR) from telephone systems to track costs, usage and employee activity. This information gathering helps to facilitate consolidated reporting and analysis of the entire voice network. When all activity, users and devices are streamlined according to need, performance, productivity and cost improves.
Edited by Blaise McNamee