Call Accounting Featured Article

Call Accounting Saves Money and Fights Fraud

  By Alicia Young, Web Editor

If we’ve established one thing on this site, it’s that call accounting may very well be the unsung hero of business operations. There are plenty of benefits to call accounting, all of which span across multiple industries—from call centers to healthcare to the government sector. We predicted at the beginning of the year that call accounting would have a major role to play in 2017 and, so far, we’ve been right.

Generally speaking, call accounting is software or hardware that provides metrics for telephony functions. These can include anything from traffic analysis and toll fraud alerts to network management, E911 notification and cost allocation. It allows companies to control how their telephones are being used, ensuring that personal calls cannot slip through the cracks and remain unnoticed.

One of the more obvious benefits of call accounting is the fact that it allows organizations to lower their telecom expenses by drastic percentages. Even if a company manages to lower their telecom expenses by 40 percent, that’s money they can save or allocate to different purposes.

On a slightly different note, call accounting can also be used to prevent companies from becoming victims of fraudulent activity. Suspicious or malicious activity can easily be caught thanks to call accounting solutions. Calls to E911, emergency services or even specific calling patterns that seem out of place can be tracked and used to notify authorized personnel. Thanks to the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, also known as the “Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act” or the “Corporate and Auditing Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency Act,” call detail reports can be used as evidence of fraudulent behavior within a company.

Over the years, call accounting has been used for countless things, helping companies save their money and reputations. Fraudulent activity is easier to punish now that there’s documented proof of malicious behavior, and telecom expenses have dropped significantly because managers can keep track of employee activity.