Tip #235: Stop Being Billed for Your Bills
Posted by Jennifer Burns on Thu, Jan 28, 2010
Earlier this week, I posted some tips that may be helpful prior to implementing a telecom and/or mobile management program. To my surprise, I received some really good feedback and a few requests to keep them coming. So going forward, I am going to try to share tips that I come across here and there. Yesterday, I was nosing around AOTMP's Telecom Knowledge Base (a very cool database full of endless resources) and found the following advice that I thought would be helpful on your respective cost-cutting journeys.
Tip #235: Stop Being Billed for Your Bills
These days, there are multiple ways you may receive a telecom invoice; you may be opening paper bills each month, you may be loading a CD-ROM invoice into your bill payment system, or you may hop online to have access to all of those monthly telecom service charges. How convenient, right? What isn't as convenient, however, is having to pay extra to receive those invoices in your required format and/or quantity.
Many Telecom Service Providers charge their subscribers a monthly fee, per account, for invoices provided in a specific format (paper, CD-ROM, EDI, online) or for invoices that are sent in duplicate. Although these per account fees may be individually low, the accumulative financial effect can be great. Thus, it is important to negotiate waivers for these types of fees into your next contract. Before heading into negotiations, know your own organization's requirements for billing document retention, as some Telecom Service Providers may waive invoice presentment fees for customers who provide proof of such requirements. Regardless, plan to require invoice presentment waivers in every telecom contract you sign to avoid paying extra just to be billed.
We love this tip as this is one of the cost-cutting areas that we specifically look for when implementing a client. We have seen a number of clients who are being billed to receive their bills! While we always advise our clients to convert their paper bills to electronic, we understand that in some cases, you may still need a paper copy of the invoice. In particular, we had one client who was legally required to retain a hard copy of their invoices. Their carrier charged them per account on a monthly basis to continue to receive this additional set of paper. What's the big deal you may ask? A few dollars, right? Not when you have over a hundred individual accounts arriving each month. That's an easily over-looked cost that can get lost amongst all the monthly invoicing. When contract renegotiations came around, we were armed with this information and were able to get the carrier to waive the fees going forward.
Check back for more helpful tips soon.