MBG Article

Call Accounting 2.0: Going Beyond the Call

Recent attention around Web 2.0 has surprisingly sparked the dot.com spirit that dominated many start-ups in the late nineties. With a renewed sense of purpose, these new start-ups, and some giants like Google, have shifted the use of the Internet platform, enabling for more social interaction and accessibility to rich media like Flash and Java. Call Accounting 2.0 is experiencing a similar revitalization as enterprises now have a renewed interest in call accounting.

Call accounting, once synonymous with reducing phone bills by tracking long distance calls for companies, is now being used in its new incarnation to monitor employees’ overall usage, thwart abuse and fraud, chargeback costs to cost centers for benchmarking purposes, and monitor traffic to assist with network migrations to new technologies like VoIP

Without a call accounting system, telephone usage is an uncontrolled expense. Employees can place unlimited personal calls, place exorbitantly expensive Directory Assistance calls, and extend call duration, leaving room for an unproductive work environment. There is no accountability for network usage without a system implemented to monitor the telecom environment. Call accounting systems provide the means to allocate, manage, control and reduce expense. While reducing employee stagnation is a major benefit of call accounting, there is more.

The Accountability Factor
Much like Web 2.0, sites are going beyond what traditional Web sites have provided in the past, current call accounting systems provide meticulous call detail information on the outgoing and incoming calls of an enterprise.

By polling each of an enterprise’s location, a system can capture all the call details and produce reports detailing and summarizing, among other things, phone calls by extension, department, location, phone number, and present budgetary charges back to corporate business units.

Coping with Traffic
With new technologies like VoIP, the ability to monitor network traffic in conjunction with monitoring telephone system efficiency can be realized with call accounting. Call detail reports (CDR) can display if all trunks are operational. In addition, it aids in managing and eliminating unused phones and PBX ports. Next generation solution in call accounting can create identify and analyze calling patterns, which allows for greater reduction in spend.

A call accounting system is automated and leads to reduction in staff time and cost associated with managing, monitoring, and producing reports. Automation creates faster and more accurate adjustments for changes in tariffs, dialing patterns and carrier billing call record formats.

Once considered an antiquated service, call accounting is experiencing a revival based on a changing technological landscape. As the Internet continues to evolve, it is reasonable to expect that call accounting services will also keep pace.