management Archives - Matsch Systems

What’s in a Bill?

Everyone hates getting bills in the mail, but we all realize that they are a necessary evil. Have you ever wondered who does the tremendously exciting job of creating those bills? We do! Matsch has been providing billing services for many, many things over the years and has shined in the areas of telecommunications/IT and wireless billing.

For the past 25 years we have been developing (and supporting in-house) the software we design. It is no small wonder that our customers value our service, as so many firms are outsourcing this sort of thing. Our customers realize that when it really matters (we are talking about money after all!), it is best to work with people you can actually talk to! Since billing is so important to all sorts of companies, it makes sense to work with a company who truly strives to provide accurate billing services to both internal and external customers.

In recent years we have provided billing applications for wireless resellers (think Mobile Virtual Network Operator or MVNO), state and local governments, colleges and universities, and hospitals. We also provide internal billing or charge-back for a variety of other IT services, including servers, virtual machines (VM’s), SAN storage, networking, and support. Providing accurate, well-organized bills and reporting enables managers to affect P&L line items in a way they’d otherwise be unable to.

We subscribe to the school of thought that “You can’t manage what you don’t measure”, so if your company is looking to better manage its telecommunications/IT resources and thereby save money, by all means, contact us!

My Wireless Expenses are Killing Me!

While analyzing cellular data for a prospective client it became apparent that they were being hit by overage charges unnecessarily. This particular employer provides over 300 cell phone subscriptions to its employees in a corporate liable environment that is less than fully managed. One of their carriers billed $11,274 for 120 subscribers in the month of October. On the surface, you might think this is not an unreasonable amount. Upon closer inspection however, it was discovered that there were overage charges of $822, international roaming charges of $603, and directory assistance charges of $131. That’s over $1500 or 14% of the total bill that was due to improper provisioning and possible misuse! Amazingly, the overage charges were incurred in spite of the fact that as a whole, the company used roughly half of the minutes they purchased from the carrier (approx. 45,000 of the 80,000 peak minutes purchased were actually used).

Public and private sector employers can avoid situations like the one above and thereby optimize their communication spend dollar. Proper analysis and reporting are required if employers are to effectively manage their wireless expenses. This analysis can be tedious and frustrating, however working with a Software as a Service provider like Matsch can offer tremendous benefits. Imagine being able to distribute costs equitably (with no manual entry required!), having high quality reporting available to all levels of management, and having a set of professionals available who work with this data every day! Contact Matsch (info@matsch.com) to see how we can help you take the pain out of managing your cellular expenses!