Many situations can cause an organization to lose track of billing, contracts, terms and agreements such as:
employee changes, management changes, service changes, mergers and acquisitions, and many more. Let’s look closer at one of those situations as an example, and we have personally seen … Merger/Acquisitions. Often times this is where – facilities are purchased from another firm, and due to the complexities involved in HR, process changes, company invoicing, systems revenue tracking so on and so forth, billing costs take a back burner to the other “pressing issues”.
A reorganization of an agency or business can often cause personnel relocations and layoffs as part of restructuring process. When this occurs often times people’s knowledge has been utilized in place of stringent policies and systems. This at times is a big reason why cost creep, unwanted contract auto-renewals, poor contracts and other cost items rear their ugly heads. These organizations are more often times faced with out of control billing challenges, which are hidden or completely unknown to them, and sometimes go unnoticed or undiscovered for years.
In most cases there are factors that can, have and may cause the facility(s) to overpay for telecom services, as well as, their utility. While these changes in business happen often, what other factors may throw billing OUT OF CONTROL?
Here are a few of the Factors that have caused over-payment of telecom and utility billing within healthcare, businesses, government facilities, legal firms and most industries;
- Moving personnel within the office
- Hiring or laying off employees
- Relocation of facilities
- Business mergers
- Confusion among billing for multiple locations
- Services not being used or utilized appropriately
- No one person responsible for auditing billing
- Outdated agreements
- Shift in positions or reassigning tasks
- No expert or training within the billing department
- Auto renewals
- Poor terms and conditions in contracts
These situations occur often times when there is a lapse in management or process. With the changes in organization the management of billing and payment for telecom or utility billing is overlooked, most often because no one wants to make a change that “may affect the business”. Invoices are being paid in full for services that are not accurate. These inaccuracies include overages, errors and old contracts with outdated agreements cost the facility or facilities – hundreds of thousands sometimes even millions of dollars depending on the size of the organization.
Businesses are under constant pressure to reduce costs and improve efficiency’s. Telecom costs are usually one of the top three expenses of any business.
Many times telecom and utility costs including wireless, video conferencing, data services, telephone systems, call centers, waste, trash, recycling, water, electricity, and gas are managed by different departments. As a result, the costs are not generally allocated nor captured in a way to accurately reflect total telecom/utility spending, along with processes that may differ by department or facility which adds to the nightmare. Traditionally, there is no single point of consolidation for all of these services and with changes happening rapidly within the organization, these challenges and pricing controls can quickly escalate.
Don’t wait until telecom and utility billing is out of control. All other areas of business require management. Managing telecom and utility billing will provide transparency and visibility into expenses, services, vendors and best future opportunities to improve service offerings while obtaining the best service and vendor management. All the while decreasing risk exposure, contract compliance and avoiding paying for unnecessary costs.
For more information about telecom and utility billing management visit us at www.limitlesstechnology.com. Contact us at: 866-504-4050.
