A Handy Audit Guide: How to Manage your Telecom Expenses

Most people don’t like to hear the word “audit.” It generally means one of two things: either your organization has a lot of boring, busy work to do in a short period of time, or the IRS is coming for you. Be that as it may, audits are extremely useful, and communications is no exception.

A lot has changed in the world of telecom, especially where expenses are concerned. With the decommissioning of copper lines and constant emergence of bigger and better cloud technology, you’ll want to pay extra attention to your expenses to be sure you’re not paying more than you should.  

We’re here to offer our expertise in communications to help you conduct an effective telecom expense audit.  

Why Conduct a Telecom Expense Audit 

The most important reason to conduct a telecom expense audit is to make sure you’re not paying more than you should be. 

Organizations, particularly large ones, wind up overpaying on telecom expenses when they fail to properly decommission systems they no longer use, read an invoice correctly, or negotiate a sub optimal contract. It can also happen if the organization makes sweeping technological changes in its communications environment without a proper plan. 

Systems no longer in use are like forgotten subscriptions on an enterprise level. The average person may lose a surprising amount of money to Kindle Unlimited or Grubhub Plus if they forget they subscribed. Larger organizations, respectively, can lose tens of thousands of dollars on a regular basis by unknowingly paying for old phone lines in offices they haven’t used in years. 

As for contracts, telecom providers often create subpar maintenance contracts that ultimately lead to expensive and usually unnecessary upgrades. For many of these organizations, it would be better to keep the older systems and support them with third-party maintenance. They tend to not realize this until it’s too late. 

These examples are issues that have plagued organizations of all sizes for many years, but there’s another one that’s more contemporary. Copper phone lines are on the verge of going extinct, and as the copper sunset closes in, telecom providers are ballooning budgets. Continuing to rely on these systems will cause organizations to overpay. 

That said, surging forward with a poorly planned out cloud migration plan can also cause an organization to overpay. Replacing legacy telephony with cloud-based technology isn’t as simple as pressing a button. 

If your organization faces any of these issues, a full telecom expense audit will expose them and help you plan to fix them. 

The Key Steps in a Telecom Expense Audit 

When conducting your own telecom expense audit, there are three major steps to follow: 

• High-level cost analysis 
• Provider evaluation 
• Full review of usage patterns

1. Cost Analysis 

To start the cost analysis, gather up every bill and invoice you can find. It’s more than a little tedious to hunt down all that information, but the more papers you can find, old and new alike, the more effective this analysis will be. A side-by-side comparison of old and new bills will make it easier to determine if you’re truly overpaying. 

2. Provider Evaluation

Next is the provider evaluation. This step is a lot like the first one, since you’ll need to gather bills, contracts, and terms of service to get started. The difference is this time you’ll have to interface with the providers themselves, especially if you intend on canceling any of those contracts. This can be a tricky and tedious process and may require help from a third party. 

3. Usage Pattern Review 

After that we get to review the usage patterns. This is where the rubber meets the road. Now that you know how much you’re spending on telecom and who’s receiving that spending, it’s time to measure that against usage. What systems are your users actively using? When, where, and why are these systems used? These are some of the most important questions since you’ll determine what stays and what goes. 

Of course, this is also where you’ll determine when and how you’ll transition to the cloud. It’s important to gauge as much information about your current communications environment as possible before the migration begins to avoid serious disruptions and spending more than necessary. 

While it’s possible to do this in-house, most organizations understandably don’t want to. It’s a lot of work, isn’t terribly fun, and can tie up quite a bit of resources better spent elsewhere. Modern technology such as an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can help alleviate the difficulty, but it can only go so far. 

A better option is to employ help from a partner with plenty of experience in the telecom world.

Partnering with Continuant’s Experts for your Audit 

A project like a telecom expense audit can take up a lot of time and resources. The results may speak for themselves, but the daunting process can prevent some organizations from even getting started. 

A partner like Continuant takes away the tedium of the audit process. Our teams of experts know exactly what to look for in bills and invoices, have many years of experience engaging with telecom providers, and know how to properly maintain any systems you decide to keep. 

We can also help you design and deploy your next solution. Our expertise in both legacy voice and modern cloud communications makes us an ideal choice to assist your migration. 

That’s what we did for Shriners Hospitals for Children. Years ago, they came to Continuant looking for Avaya support. We determined that they were overpaying on their maintenance contracts and helped them get a better solution. Best of all, when the time came, we were able to provide a roadmap and investment protection for the hospital’s migration to a new Cisco solution. 

If you’re in a similar situation, we can help your organization in the same way. Reach out today, our experts are ready to help!