How To Apply Call Rates In A Call Accounting Program

One of the numerous tasks a Call Accounting Tool executes is to set call charges to all the phone call records. This amount must preferably correspond with the sum the telecom service provider applies to a telephone call.

There are a number of telephone firms that charge a clear cost based on a per minute call charge; other networks prefer a talk time rate on per second basis. Call charges differ due to a number of factors, one of which is the call receiver's telecom company. A problem is encountered for the call logging system when a telephone service provider allows subscribers to change their phone company while keeping the old number. When people choose this method of connection transfer without changing the number, no one can tell what telecom network a certain number belongs to. Hence, a person calling a specific number will not know how much he/ she will be billed for the call as he/ she is not clear which network service he/ she is calling to.

Many telephone firms have a different rate for dialing to different destinations - both national as well as out of the country. In addition to this, there are numerous telecommunication service providers that promote various call packages with extra-minutes incentives to its subscribers hence growing the intricacies a call accounting package should attempt to emulate.

The entire call accounting process becomes useless if the call accounting tool's call charges are not in conformity with the telecom company's call rates. A system is considered effective if it calculates 98% call charging accuracy. Any figure below 65% means the call logging solution is ineffective and worthless to the customer.

An issue that, hence, arises is: How will a call accounting package conform to these varying call charges?

Many resellers set up a call accounting service without tariff lists and enable clients to enter the call costs themselves. If your call logging requirements are of a basic level and your telecom provider has simple call tariffs, you can save some money by opting for this option, however, it will consume a lot of your time. Alternatively, if your telecom network has a complicated tariff package and your requirements are of complex nature, in that case opting for this option will be very difficult to manage and hence useless in the long term.

Resellers normally issue a contract guaranteeing their rates will conform to the phone company's. While offering a price, they have to take into account the time and effort they are likely to use in maintaining the call accounting package to specification while holding the quoted cost as reasonable and justifiable as they can.

In a survey carried out by the Aberdeen Group, they revealed that at least 11% of customer's telecom bills have faulty calculations and these miscalculations, surprisingly, were making the subscriber to pay more. If you find a scenario where your telecom invoice does not equal the call accounting invoice, make sure you thoroughly dig into the source of this error by calling your service providers, before blaming this functionality error on the call logging package.