Call accounting software is one of the most misunderstood tools in the enterprise technology landscape — and many organizations are paying for capabilities they already have through their existing TEM solution. Learn more about telecom expense management and how understanding the relationship between TEM and call accounting can save your organization from unnecessary software investment. Call accounting, also called call logging, refers to a software system that is used to track telephone usage and allocate costs by department, division, or location. Tracking calls manually is very time intensive which is why the demand for a software solution calls for a call accounting solution. However, not all teams are set up with the information they need to make an educated decision on a quality call accounting system — or if they even need a solution at all!
Let’s cover three areas to help you make an informed decision as you explore if you really do in fact need a call accounting solution.
What Is Call Accounting and Who Actually Needs It?
Before evaluating whether your organization needs a dedicated call accounting system, it helps to understand what it actually does — and what it does not do. Call accounting software captures granular data about every telephone interaction: who initiated the call, who was called, duration, line used, and any associated notes or flags. This level of detail is genuinely valuable for specific use cases — particularly call centers, healthcare environments, and emergency services — but represents significant overkill for the majority of business environments.
According to Gartner, the organizations that derive the greatest ROI from dedicated call accounting systems are those with high call volumes, regulatory reporting requirements, or complex customer service operations that require granular performance analytics. For most other organizations, the cost allocation and usage tracking capabilities built into a robust TEM platform cover the practical requirements without the added complexity or expense of a standalone call accounting solution.
3 Reasons You Probably Don’t Need Call Accounting
Reason 1: You Already Have a TEM Vendor Offering Similar Call Accounting Capabilities
When you leverage a robust telecom expense management provider, inventory, usage, and cost allocation are generally included in the service offering. This form of call accounting is offered at a more basic level than the detailed reporting you would receive in a dedicated call accounting solution. When working with a TEM vendor, you will also have a dedicated team to support your needs and pull reports for you on a regular basis — as most IT teams do not have the resources to allocate to reviewing this data regularly.
Here are some questions to ask yourself when evaluating if you need a call accounting system when you already leverage a TEM solution:
- Do we require further visibility into our usage beyond what our TEM platform provides?
- Do we have time internally to regularly review the reports a call accounting system generates?
- Will there be an additional ROI when using this solution on top of our existing TEM investment?
If you cannot answer yes to all three questions confidently, your existing TEM solution is likely sufficient. Asking yourself do I need a dedicated telecom manager is a closely related question — and the answer often reveals whether your current TEM setup already covers the visibility and reporting needs driving interest in call accounting.
Reason 2: You Don’t Have a Call Center With Call Tracking Requirements
Some of the most important industries to evaluate a call accounting system include the healthcare industry, emergency services, and complex customer service departments at large organizations. The data that call accounting collects is really granular — including who initiated the call, who was called, duration of the call, any special notes about the call, and what lines it was placed from. This information is helpful in tracking patient concerns like calls to urgent care and nurses on-call, as well as those urgently seeking support from an EMS provider.
Here are some questions you should ask yourself when evaluating if your organization needs the granular details of a call accounting system:
- Is detailed call recording a priority for your business operations or regulatory compliance?
- Does this call recording provide insight into operations decisions to serve your clients, patients, or customers best?
- Will you have the time and resources to prioritize call accounting in order to make actionable decisions from the call tracking data and justify the expense?
If your organization does not operate a call center, manage patient communications, or run a complex customer service function with regulatory reporting requirements, the granular data a call accounting system provides is unlikely to generate sufficient ROI to justify the investment. Understanding do you need a telecom expense management system first helps frame whether call accounting is an add-on worth considering or a redundant layer on top of capabilities you already have.
Reason 3: Your Telecom Provider Already Offers Usage Information
Whether you have a dedicated team of telecom expense management experts monitoring your telecom activity or you outsource this project to a TEM provider, you may not have all of the information needed for educated decision-making. Data preference varies among organizations, as does the amount of data provided by telecommunications and wireless carriers. Generally, this information is easily accessed within dedicated telecom and wireless portals. However, the biggest reason organizations do not access this information proactively is because they do not have the time or the resources to analyze this data.
Here are three questions to ask yourself to see if you already have access to this data:
- Does our telecom and/or wireless carrier offer access to a portal where we can analyze usage data? If you do not have this information and you must search for it specifically, you probably don’t need a call accounting solution.
- Do we have an individual on our team that we can assign this task to?
- Do they have enough available hours, or will we have to hire someone specifically for this project?
In Conclusion: Making the Right Call Accounting Decision
To summarize the information above, call accounting is an add-on solution. Call accounting preference varies among organizations across the globe, pending these important reasons for evaluation:
- Do I have a TEM provider and do they offer cost allocation and usage tracking? If yes, you probably do not need a call accounting solution.
- Do I need to track the participants on the call and other granular data for reporting purposes? If yes, you should lean towards a call accounting solution.
- Will tracking the granular activity lead to a return on investment or will it be a sunk cost? Depending on how you answer this question, you may reveal your final decision of whether or not to invest in a TEM provider and/or call accounting system that meets your organization’s unique needs.
The organizations that make the best technology investment decisions are those that start with an honest assessment of what they already have — and whether a new tool genuinely fills a gap or simply duplicates existing capabilities at additional cost. Exploring the need for telecommunication expense management (TEM) explained gives additional context for how TEM and supplementary tools like call accounting fit together in a well-structured technology management strategy.
Ready to evaluate whether your current TEM solution already covers your call tracking and cost allocation needs? Contact Valicom today and let our team help you assess exactly what your telecom environment requires — and what it does not.
