TEM - Is this a solution for your customers?

Many companies have looked at TEM options for thier customers / businesses. Telecommunication Expense Management is a good long term solution to manage large networks of accts with multiple carriers.

Here are some advantages:

• Your accts payable department can focus on thier primary job functions instead of sitting on the phone with carriers each month managing & disputing bills
• Every Telecom acct will be flaged if there is any variance in MRC & the TEM team to research on your behalf
• You will receive credits sooner as you will not be managing the carrier on your own
• You give approval for each investigation on behalf of your company
• Employee resources are maximized
• You can run reports on specific locations, spend types, and monthly costs for internal reporting - saving time on manually generated data
• The fee associated is based on your Telecom volume

Here are some things to consider:

• The TEM tools on the market today are run by companies that are not affiliated with Agents or Partners. Thus when an acct comes up for renewal, the acct can auto renew at a higher rate or auto renew at the existing rate as no one is managing that peice of it.
• TEM is a good solution - but only a full package value after the inital audit is fully complete & all changes are made to the acct.
• The auditor/agent / broker then becomes dis-engaged with the management of the acct, thus is unable to have visibility to promotions or contract changes that should happen long term, to avoid this - just have a strong relationship with your TEM representative.

Rules of thumb:

• Higher an auditor focused ONLY on Telecommunication services
• Higher the auditor to audit full inventory, recommendations, optimization & contract renegotiations - make sure the auditor completes all of the work - so nothing gets missed (keeping multiple hands out of the process as well)
• Once the invoices and records reflect all changes are made, then it is time to engage the TEM organization for the long term management of bill review.
• Each month the TEM will then work to ensure your accts do not show any new increase or decrease of monthly spend - keeping your bottom line where it needs to be
• Re-higher your original auditor to do an act review every 6 months to ensure no accts are up for renewal, no new promotions are to be had & everything is up to par on the lowest possible rates.

We highly recommend you only work with companies who have been trained specifically how to audit Telecom invoices. Many "auditors" are not trained on how to read tarrif, contract vs csr vs invoices & thus many items are missed. Also such auditing firms have relationships and/or employs individuals who focus only on tax billing issues on Telecom invoices as well. These are all key items to review & will only be accomplished with seasoned Telecom auditors. We have a combined 35 years of experience in this specialty & we outsource our skills to other auditing companies & Agent Brokers. Feel free to contact us directly to work out an arrangement that is right for you & your business. We now work with over 5 TEM solution providers.