What is Telecom Expense Management (TEM)?

TEM is a proactive service that provides inventory management, monthly auditing of invoices, cost allocation, management reporting and ongoing optimization recommendations.  TEM drives telecom costs down. 

What is Telecom Lifecycle Management (TLM)?  

TLM is a term used by agents who offer enhanced, full service, single source telecom management.  With Lifecycle Management, the client uses a single vendor to: purchase telecom and other services; complete all moves, adds, and changes; conduct repairs and proactive inventory management; and provide billing auditing, credit recovery and management reporting.  The full lifecycle of telecom services.

How does TEM or TLM differ from what an agent normally provides?

TEM or TLM offer additional services that benefit the client that normally aren’t a part of the normal agent delivery model. TEM/TLM provides people, processes and tools that maintain cost control, pro-active management oversight and reporting tools for complete transparency of telecom environments. 

Key differentiating points are: 

  • Proactive inventory management of all telecom services.
  • Proactive invoice auditing and credit recovery.
  • Tools to proactively identify opportunities to maintain the most optimally priced environment.
  • Management reporting. 
  • Quarterly reviews and optimization recommendations.
  • Customer online access to all service inventories, costs, location and contact information, reports, historical trends and the list goes on.

What services are included?

Our focus is telecom services and the recurring costs associated with those services. Telecom services include:

  • Local service 
  • Long distance service
  • Data and internet service
  • Access
  • Mobility  
  • Equipment maintenance costs

What detail is captured?

We capture all relevant detail and every chargeable service to include vendors, accounts, circuits, phone numbers, features and tax (if needed), vendor contacts and contracts and location information.  For mobility we capture user, device and plan information and usage. Then we organize it according to how the organization is structured so inventory and costs align with how it is viewed in the budget. 

What is received at the end of the audit?

At the end of the audit, clients receive: 

  • An executive summary detailing savings, process improvements and management reports outlining spend by service/vendor/location, contract summary and invoice optimization opportunities.
  • A complete and detailed inventory of all services with costs.
  • A detailed action plan to achieve cost savings and process improvement recommendations.
  • Execution of savings recommendations.

What does the client get during the ongoing management?

  • Monthly audit of invoices for contract compliance.
  • Credit recovery of billing errors.
  • Ongoing move, add and change inventory updates.
  • Ongoing mobility plan and device management.
  • 24x7 access to K1, our secure, cloud based platform providing instant access to information and reporting.
  • A dedicated project manager.
  • Quarterly account reviews of work performed, financial reports, vendor contract status and benchmarking, savings detail and financial and operational process improvements.

What benefits do clients receive?

  • Klarratee provides several tangible and non-tangible benefits, to include:
  • Real cost savings of 15% or more and true telecom optimization.
  • Invoice consolidation of up to 90%, saving significant accounts payable time.
  • A single repository for all telecom service information.  No more:
  • Calling the vendor for a contract.  
  • Calling AP for last month's invoice amount. 
  • Calling a location to find out what they have installed.
  • Figuring out what spreadsheet had the needed information and wondering if it’s accurate.
  • A complete, current and accurate inventory of all telecom assets for all locations.  
  • Monthly invoice audits to ensure that clients only pay for what they contracted. Billing errors are caught and credits are recovered. 

Who in the organization benefits from Klarratee Services?

CEO, CIO, AP and IT personnel can benefit from TEM services.  Financial reporting, budgeting, operational reporting, service optimization and savings, and complete telecom management are just a few examples of how EVERYONE can benefit from Klarratee.

 

What size organizations see a benefit?

TEM services benefit any size organization since all organizations want to save money and create best practices around managing telecom services.  However, Klarratee targets companies that most other TEM providers leave behind.  Companies that spend $10,000 - $250,000 per month on telecom services are great fits for Klarratee's customized, service-oriented approach to telecom management.  Any company with a multi-location or dynamic environment can benefit from Klarratee's service as can companies that want to implement a best practice approach to managing a critical asset or simply want to save money.

How much do Klarratee’s services cost? 

  • Audit (one time cost): 2.25% of annual telecom spend
  • Inventory and invoice management:  2.25% of monthly telecom spend, billed monthly 
  • K1 Software:  Klarratee's secure, cloud based software ranges between $199-$499 depending on the monthly telecom spend and is billed monthly.

How much staff time will this take? 

Our goal is to free up the client's time, not add to the workload. A Klarratee project manager will be assigned as the primary contact who will drive the project for efficiency and to ensure that time lines and goals are achieved. An initial kick-off meeting with all project participants is usually sufficient to get the project started. We’ll walk through the process, define information we need, identify how we’ll communicate updates and set up a follow-up meeting with accounting and operations to conduct a process review and document how we’ll work together. All meetings have a structured agenda and are very efficient. 

 

What information is needed to get started?

To start off the project, Klarratee needs all invoices/accounts, vendor contracts and vendor contacts.   It's a bit of work, but once we understand how invoices are received and routed internally, we can usually help streamline the data gathering process. 

 

When we know the vendors and account information, we go to work digging to find out the detailed service and cost information.  We’ll work directly with vendors to manage the data gathering and billing questions.  

How do clients access the data?

Client data is stored in our secure cloud based platform, K1.  The data can be accessed by authorized personnel anytime/anywhere through an internet connection.  K1 has SSL protection so all data is secure.

Can Klarratee integrate with AP and HR systems?

Yes, K1 can integrate with the client's AP and HR system.  This is a customized service that benefits many organizations by eliminating manual data entry. Short of integration into these systems, we can provide a summary to accounts payable matching their field entry process to eliminate the need to muddle through piles of invoices.

Can clients buy the software only?

Yes, clients can buy our K1 software for self-management.  We strongly recommend that they have us conduct the audit and set up the data in K1 first to get started on the right foot, then take over the management if they have the resources and feel they can make the time to do the work. K1 is very intuitive, but still requires work. We’ll provide training and support if a client chooses this path.  

What are the contract terms?

Our standard term is three years. Clients know the value every month by looking at reports that tell  how much we saved and exactly what we do. It's all documented in K1.

Why should clients invest in this service?

Several reasons: 

  • Telecom for many organizations is a top 5 – 10 expense line-item, costing an average of $2500+/year/employee and growing rapidly. 
  • You probably have tools and staff to manage other large expense areas. If there is proven benefit, why would this area be any different? 
  • Hard dollar savings of 15% or more, a solid ROI that pays for the service.
  • Soft dollar savings through staff efficiencies and improved vendor management.
  • Best practice controls providing management oversight and transparency.

Is bill payment included in TEM services?

Klarratee does offer a bill payment service as an option.  Within the bill payment option, Klarratee will pay all customers invoices upon approval and treasury transfers by the customer.  Klarratee's standard offering includes: the receipt, audit review, credit recovery, data entry of costs with allocations as need, for all invoices.   Upon Klarratee's  approval of each invoice,  a report is generated with the customer's specific coding fields to ease data entry by the customer into their AP system. For a small development fee, we can develop an electronic import into a customer's AP system to eliminate manual entry of invoice data and cost allocations.