| Frequently Asked Questions: About Call Accounting |
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| What is Call Accounting ? |
| Call Accounting is the collection, rating and display of an organizations telecommunications expenses down to the user level. Cost centers, departments or other entities within the organization can now gather this information to produce internal bills and reports that are used to not only control the telecommunications expenses but also to allocate these resources correctly in the general ledger system of the organization. |
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| How is this different from my Phone Bill ? |
| Normally, you receive a phone bill from your Local Service (RBOC) provider for your line costs and local traffic. Another from your long distance service provider, another from your cellular or PCS provider and still others from your ISP, calling card or telecommunications equipment provider. The phone detail from these bills does not show what extension or user with the organization made the call and they do not merge the information under each user. It is impossible to monitor phone use and employee abuse under such a system. A good Call Accounting system will collect this diverse group of call information and deliver a usable set of reports that is based on each individual’s telecommunications usage. |
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| What benefits do I receive from using Call Accounting ? |
| The biggest benefit you will see is an increase in employee productivity. Studies have shown that companies that have a Call Accounting process in place and use the information gathered have a decrease of six to thirteen percent in personal calls. Not only does a company save on non-business related calls but also the workforce becomes more effective. Other benefits are that your financial team will be able to accurately allocate all telecommunications expenses to the proper department. |
| Using the reports and raw data to mine information about strategic initiatives is also very helpful to you. You will be able to see how many times your clients are called or how many times support services are called and use this type of data to implement strategies to improve your business process. |
| A good Call Accounting process will also help protect your organization from telecommunications fraud by monitoring your traffic and reporting on anomalies. |
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| How do you get my data ? |
| Your call data can be delivered to us in various ways. The most common is to have a non-intrusive Pollable memory device attached to the SMDR (Station Message Detail Record) or also known as CDR (Call Detail Record) port on your PBX. This RS 232 port delivers the information needed about each call. This information consists of the number called, extension the number was called from, the time and date the call was made and what trunk was used to connect the call. We would then remotely collect this information on a regular basis and begin to process it into usable data. |
| Ancillary information that does not pass through your PBX such as Calling card calls, cellular or PCS traffic or OCCs (Other Charges and Credits) can be delivered to us via magnetic media, CD or FTP transfer. |
| Our product eMECA allows you to enter one time charges such as service visits, third party calls and other charges and credits via a web enabled interface for processing in your next accounting cycle. |
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| Why use an ASP ? |
| Using an Application Service Provider (ASP) like CDR-DATA Corporation allows you to focus on your core competencies rather than having to develop, implement and maintain your own software system. Our web-enabled services allow us to continuously deliver the latest enhancements to you quickly after they have been completely tested. |
| Some other advantages of an ASP environment are: |
 Costs are predictable and you only pay for the services you use. |
| Your IT department will be free to work on more strategic applications. |
| Implementation time is greatly reduced since there is no software installation. |
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| Do I need to sign a long-term commitment to get these services ? |
| No. The only commitment is a mutual 90 notice of termination of services. We need to satisfy your requirements each and every day. Some of our clients prefer a term contract for budgetary reasons and we are glad to oblige. |
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| How do I sign up ? |
| Call CDR-DATA Corporation at 626-791-9700 and we will begin the process. |
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