Given the ongoing state of the economy it is not surprising that we have received a number of inquiries from our clients on how to save money on their communications expenditures.  While there are a number of ways we can help our clients, the one we recommend as a starting place surprises many — the bill audit.

For those who are unfamiliar with this service, a bill audit is fairly straightforward.  The audit is a comparison of the service provider invoices received by the client against the service providers internal records.  If errors are found we work with the service provider to correct the error going forward and request refunds on past over-billings. 

While this may seem straightforward in theory it is extremely complicated in practice.  The service provider’s customer records are written in an arcane codes called USOC codes.  The reasoning behind the USOC is best left to another time. Suffice it to say that everything in the network has a USOC code.  The combination of elements into features and features into saleable products that appear on an invoice is what make it complicated. 

There are a couple of reasons why we recommend the audit as a starting place in a cost savings program.

1. According to a Gartner Group study of a few years back upwards of 80% of all bills contain errors.  There are a number of reasons for this ranging deregulation of phone service to the myriad of incompatible billing systems brought on by the wave of mergers of the past few years.
2. The bill audit has no direct cost to the client.  Penland Corner offers  bill auditing on a contingency basis.  Our fees come out of the refunds and savings we find as a result of the audit.  No refund, no fee.
3. It is a logical starting place for a cost savings program.  It simply makes sense to get an accurate assessment of  current services and their costs before we start making changes.

We recommend that all of our clients get a telecom audit to establish a baseline and anytime major changes are made to their service.  It is the best way to stay on top of communications costs.