Network and Voice
Telecom Expense Management
Telecom expense management is a service that checks your phone, network and mobile bills against what you ordered and pays the carriers for you. The short name is TEM.
- 5 companies on the shelf
- Coverage
Buyer's checklist
Eight questions that decide this purchase
Think these through before you buy. Answer what you can and your quote comes back faster. Skip what you cannot, and we will work through it with you.
- 01
What is the goal: lower spending, visibility, tighter control or less complexity?
- 02
Which spending is in scope: fixed telecom, mobile, cloud, or all three?
- 03
Do you want software your own team runs, a fully managed service, or a single audit?
- 04
Does the provider check every invoice before paying it, or audit after the fact?
- 05
How many carriers, circuits, billing accounts and monthly invoices do you have? "Not sure" is a useful answer.
- 06
Should the provider pay the carriers for you from one payment?
- 07
For sites abroad, do you need bills translated, currencies converted and relationships with local carriers?
- 08
Should device security be managed in the same engagement, or only the cost side?
CCMG
No company matches every box you checked
That usually means the combination is rare, not impossible. Clear a filter, or add the service and we will go find who can do it.
Capabilities come from published supplier material. We confirm them for your addresses before anything is quoted.
More on what it is
It works by keeping three records together: an inventory of every line, circuit and device you pay for, the invoices that arrive each month, and the contracts behind them. With all three in one place, a bill can be compared with the contract and the inventory before anyone pays it.
You get software and people. The platform does the matching. The provider's staff chase missing invoices, keep the inventory current, dispute wrong charges and make the payments. A typical bill moves through the same steps each month: received, verified, split among the departments that used the service, approved, passed to your accounts payable system and paid. Bills that used to land at many different locations arrive as one stream, and some providers take one payment from you and pay every carrier themselves.
The scope has grown. What was once a simple voice and data network now includes mobile fleets, unified communications, network services bought by subscription and connected devices. The same method covers mobile, from ordering a phone to auditing its plan. It also covers cloud spending, where the practice is called FinOps: put every provider's costs in one format, find savings in the usage data, then watch the budget.
Many providers go beyond software. They will build your inventory from scratch, audit past bills, review mobile plans, negotiate with carriers and manage new installations.
Two things decide how much you get from it. The first is when the checking happens. A provider that validates each invoice before paying stops a bad charge. One that audits afterward can only try to recover money you have already spent. The second is the inventory. A bill cannot be checked against a list nobody has built, so that is where most projects start.
Who needs it
- You have many locations, and the bills arrive separately at each one.
- Your services are a mix of old circuits and newer mobile, calling and connected device contracts.
- You operate in several countries and receive bills in other currencies and languages.
- Your CFO or CIO wants one view of technology spending.
- Your mobile fleet is growing faster than anyone's view of what it costs.
- Nobody can say how many carriers, circuits or billing accounts you have.
A company with one site, one carrier and a handful of lines can do this with a spreadsheet and a reminder before the renewal date.
Signs you need it
- You have paid late fees, had a service cut off, or found charges nobody authorized.
- Nobody checks invoice lines against the contract.
- You negotiate renewals with no independent view of current market terms.
- Trouble tickets with carriers drag on because nobody owns the chasing.
- Agreements go unreviewed until a renewal forces the question.
- The finance team cannot split the telecom bill among the departments that ran it up.
How IT Raven helps
Add Telecom Expense Management to your quote list and tell us your sites, your countries, a rough count of carriers and what you want out of it. A person takes that to the expense management providers in our 500+ partner network and sorts them on fit: whether their strength is fixed telecom, mobile or cloud, how far their reach extends abroad, whether they sell software or a managed service, and whether a company your size is the kind of client they serve well.
We stay on one thread through onboarding, which means the inventory build and the first full month of validated bills, and the same team is here when the scope grows.
Phones and tablets themselves belong in Managed Mobility. When an audit shows a circuit should be replaced, we quote it under Business Connectivity.
How buying works
The store is the easy part. Staying on the account is the job.
Anyone can show you logos. The reason to buy here is what happens on install night, and on the ticket you open nine months later.
- 01
Build your quote list
Add services and companies as you shop. No form stands between you and the shelf.
- 02
We bring back real options
A person shops the bench against your addresses, then walks you through what fits and what does not.
- 03
We handle the order and install
Paperwork, site survey, install dates, cutover night. You get one thread, not five vendors.
- 04
We stay on your account
Same team for moves, adds, tickets and the next renewal. That is the part everyone else drops.