Telecom expenses are one of the most difficult areas to manage within an enterprise and a lot of money is wasted. Wireline and wireless assets and expenses are too complex to manage with spreadsheets, yet there are still companies that rely on this cumbersome method. Unfortunately, telecom expense and asset management often becomes a black hole, as many organizations have no expertise, no time or adequate tools to bring visibility and order to it. That is where telecom expense management comes in.
What is TEM (Telecom Expense Management)?
The question often arises, what is TEM? TEM is an abbreviation for telecom expense management, which is a system that allows enterprises to better manage their telecom assets and expenses in order to reduce costs and improve systems. There are various forms of TEM solutions and services. For example, there are managed, unmanaged, and hybrid TEM services. The type of TEM service or solution chosen is typically based upon an enterprise’s in-house resources and their related experience.
Below is a great illustration of what is involved in telecom expense management and its lifecycle can successfully be handled by a TEM software solution.
How a TEM Solution Can Help
There are various reasons as to why an enterprise would choose a TEM solution to assist with managing wireline and wireless assets and expenses, including those outlined below.
1. Eliminates the Stare and Compare Approach
Some enterprises still utilize manual entry of all billing items to process carrier invoice payments into the finance accounts payable (AP) systems and handle large rims of paper billings with minimum or no validation. Within the industry, we refer to this approach as the “stare and compare” system. It is time consuming and prone to errors. A TEM solution can eliminate this approach.
2. Goes Beyond a Temporary Fix
Enterprises will often rely on annual billing audits that reconcile service inventories and compare contract rate plans with service charges on endless pages of historical billings. Telecom audits can be very effective at recovering billing errors and can provide real service optimization strategies, producing significant savings for future months, but they are a repetitive cost and only provide a temporary fix. On the other hand, a fully-integrated TEM platform offers a more permanent solution.
3. Manages the Entire Lifecycle of Telecom Assets & Expenses
A robust TEM solution manages the entire lifecycle of telecom assets and expenses, by using the initial audit to get all services on a clean slate. Take Softeligent as an example. Our TEM software automates the audit, imports all carrier invoices electronically and tags and scans physical assets, which begins the lifecycle of telecom expense management.
Learn More About Softeligent
A good TEM solution is the answer for enterprises spending more than $50,000 per month on telephone, Internet, data lines, and wireless services. Softeligent is a hosted software-as-a-service (SaaS) TEM provider that offers a streamlined way for enterprises to process invoices, verify charges, track inventory, handle chargebacks and process payment authorizations.
We have been disrupting the industry with its robust capabilities, which include:
Managing workflows and automating reconciliation and validation processes.
Reconciling invoice charges against contract rates, and inventory of services with MAC orders (moves, adds and change).
Providing enterprises with the opportunity to manage by alert and exceptions.
Placing invoices (once they have aligned and are reconciled) in a queue for processing through integration with finance systems in AP.
Creating alerts and tracking discrepancies.
Softeligent provides workflow management of wireless devices and IT assets that link any device to purchase orders, contracts, departments/users, and cost centers. Cost allocation and charge back processes are totally accurate and streamlined giving departments and users’ visibility into their services and costs.
To schedule your free demo, fill out our contact form today. We will show you how your enterprise can save money using Softeligent.