Web service to help with telecoms bills

The Telecommunications Managers Association's (TMA's) Billing for Business Analyser web service uses a question and answer session to match users' billing requirements with the supplier's products. The TMA hopes the service will help users get clearer bills from their service providers, cutting down on admin and mischarging.

Ten suppliers, including BT, NTL, Energis and One2One, accounting for 90 per cent of the UK telecoms market, signed up at launch.

TMA says that about one third of companies lose money because of inaccurate billing, both by paying for services that they don't receive and through the administrative costs of checking bills.The TMA, made up of 1,700 telecoms managers, estimates that members lose £86 million per year - or 1 per cent of their telecoms spend - through bad billing practices.

"If you don't know what you are spending your money on, then you aren't getting the best out of the relationship," said Paul Fegan, chairman of the TMA's billing special interest group. "Poor billing is costing industry a lot of money. We aren't saying they are being overcharged; it's the process that costs the money - although there is an element of overcharging."

The Analyser is a late addition to the TMA's billing initiative. When this was launched in September 1998, the TMA said the Analyzer would follow shortly after, but Fegan admits it was delayed by technical problems and by the need to work in partnership with carriers. The TMA plans to complete the information on billing of voice services before moving to data services.

Mobile commerce will be the next big stumbling block for billing systems, as corporate users buy goods on their mobile phones, which are then charged to their phone bills rather than credit cards. If this is not carefully managed, it could make the billing problem even worse, warned Fegan. "The next real big issue will be third-party service billing," he said. "We already have difficulties with the phone bill. Can you imagine what will happen when the bill includes non-telecoms purchases?"

The TMA is working with suppliers to define criteria to help suppliers to deliver billing in an orderly way.

"If we don't do it, chaos will reign," said Fegan. "We know it's coming, and we will probably see the start of it this year."