Telecom expense reporting is the process of consolidating your telecom billing information from multiple sources into a single repository. Then, compiling the data into relevant reports. It’s a key component of telecom expense management.
For an enterprise with a large and complex telecom estate, a telecom expense reporting solution provides a single view of data. And this has many benefits.
When you can easily find, visualize, and manage data in one place, it can be used to fuel context-based decision-making and take a more proactive approach to telecom expense management.
The Importance of Telecom Expense Reporting
Standardizing your data is vital, especially if you’re a global enterprise.
No matter what format, geographic location, service, or vendor your expense data is sourced from – you need a method of collating it into a single portal, understanding it, and using it to improve efficiency in your organization.
Telecom expense reporting solutions should encompass all of your telecom estate data, such as:
- Fixed
- Wireless
- Mobile
- SaaS
- UCaaS
- IoT
When you have a comprehensive view of all of this, your teams are better equipped to understand how, where, and when data is used in your organization, giving you ample opportunity for optimization.
The Types of Telecom Expense Reporting and Benefits
There are three primary telecom expense reporting methods are suitable for enterprise organizations.
1. Portal Reporting
Portal-based reporting is intuitive to use and designed to provide quick access to information, all from one place (a single portal). This is usually a cloud-based platform.
You can configure portal access by job role, providing relevant data and focused reporting to who needs it in your organization and filtering out sensitive data.
Key Benefits
- Role-based access controls: Implement permission-based access to reporting
- Push reporting: Automate reporting in real-time
- Relevancy: Easily access data from a single interface
2. API Reporting
API reporting is harder to set up and manage in-house for a large enterprise. It is also known as data warehousing.
API reporting captures detailed analytics data sets that can be integrated with your own choice or analytics tool. If you’re already using portal-based reporting, API reporting can be integrated with it too.
Key Benefits
- Custom reporting: End-users can create custom reports
- Detailed data sets: Choose your data sources and consolidate them in one report
- Simple integration: Integrate with other enterprise data sets
3. Reporting for SLAs, XLAs, and KPIs
Another way to use telecom expense reporting is to measure whether you’re achieving your expense management goals.
You can measure key performance indicators (KPIs), service level agreements (SLAs), or experience level agreements (XLAs).
If your internal teams don’t have the time, capacity, or resources to manage this in-house, an experienced telecom expense management provider can help set up reporting functionality that measures this for you.
Key Benefits
- Accountability: Monitor your goals
- Value: Make decisions based on data, not guesswork
- Visibility: Understand and track expense management decisions
Better Data Visibility, Better Choices
A telecom expense management partner can help enterprises with telecom expense reporting management. Or, you can choose telecom expense reporting software to manage it internally.
However, if you choose software alone, does your internal team have in-depth knowledge and understanding of telecom expense management? You might be able to manage and track your telecom expenses, but you also need the knowledge and capabilities to continuously optimize costs and find savings using the data you collect. Only then will your telecom expense reporting be truly effective.
