Tidal Telecom

If you have seen as many invoices that we have, you would begin to think most telecom companies do not have the ability to provide an accurate invoice.  With something so important as invoicing, most would assume that the companies spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours to get it right.  That is the irony, they do.  Many of the large telecom companies spend a tremendous amount of money in auditing, building, and maintaining telecom invoicing systems, so then what is the problem?

1. New products.  The telecom product space changes almost daily.  You can spend millions of dollars designing the perferct billing system and have it all fall apart when you introduce a new product.
2. Mergers.  Companies like Verizon and ATT have bought so many companies that they have 100′s of billing systems to integrate.  It is hard enough to design one system, when you have to integrate 100′s of them you are bound to have invoicing problems.
3. Rate structures.  No product or pricing fits everyone and as a result it is common to find modifications to pricing structures that the billing systems can’t handle.
4. Overabundance of information.  When ordering new services, there are so many pieces of information to get the service right it is hard for a billing system (unless very well designed) that can contain that information correctly.
5. Order changes.  Every company has them.  An office move, new users, more/less bandwidth needs, etc.  When you make changes to a service that it already installed the billing systems often fail.  That is why you see so many problems with subscription services and circuit order changes.
6. Human error.  At the end of the day the data is only as good as the person that enters it.

So with so many potential areas for errors, how can you help minimize the chance of errors on your invoices?

1. Always provide complete information on the service orders.  Often companies will work with a technical team to install services and forget to put the correct details on the service order.  This can cause unexpected billing problems in the future.  Always double check your information and make sure it mirrors what your technical team is doing.
2. Make sure the pricing is clear and detailed in either your contract or service order.  Often, pricing in the service order is complex and if modified from the original format can cause problems.  Putting examples in the documents helps a lot.  Make sure all services you will be using are quoted and clearly define what services apply to what discount.
3. Follow procedures with the Telecom companies.  If they prefer you to put an order in their online tool, best advice is to use it plus whatever other methods you use.  There is never providing to much information to the telecom provider.  If a dispute should arise, this is also you best course of protection.  We have seen dispute denied even though the customer account team worked on the change but the customer failed to sign one piece of paper or fill our the proper form.

There will always be errors in telecom invoicing that you will not be able to minimize.  The best you can do is properly document your purchases and make sure you audit your invoices on a monthly basis.  If you follow the three steps above, it will go a long way to helping you avoid large disputes with your telecom vendors.