Case
Study 001 - WinBill® |
Opportunity |
Solution |
Summary |
Telecommunications Company
Opportunity - One of the largest nationwide telecommunications
company, began using WinBill® Telecom Bill Tracking software
as an internal invoice processing tool to chargeback specific IT
expenses to their employees. While this process was successful
and profitable, when the new IT Finance Manager arrived she soon
recognized that WinBill® was more than just an invoicing tool.
Tasked with combining three invoice processing groups into one,
she was faced with managing over 30,000 expense entries a month
for all internal employees' cell phones, calling cards, and pagers.
The IT Finance group received all invoicing in paper format and
manually entered the billing information into WinBill®. After
processing invoices, the IT Finance group would send daily vouchers
to Accounts Payable for manual entry of the data into the company's
accounting system.
Due to the complexity of each bill, only summary data was being
tracked in WinBill®. Thus the IT Finance group was only able
to chargeback total expenses to their internal cost centers. Additional
time consuming efforts were required to provide managers with the
detailed expense breakdown they needed to oversee their staff expenses.
To keep updated with all internal cell phone, pager, and calling
card services, the IT Finance group was entering in WinBill® the
data input into their internal ordering and change management system.
These changes were also being entered manually.
The IT Finance Manager knew there had to be a better process.
Solution - First, they needed to eliminate the need for manual
data entry where possible. The IT Finance Manager opted to utilize
WinBill's existing Electronic Vendor Interfaces and had TTI create
new Interfaces based on their specific requirements. Electronic
Vendor Interfaces import detailed expense data from electronic
files provided by telecom vendors. The time savings and increased
detail tracking obtained by usage of the Electronic Vendor Interfaces
allow for increased productivity and greater reporting capabilities.
"Now we import all of our cell
phone, calling card and pager vendor billing within minutes into
WinBill® and capture all
detail and data. No more manual data entry, key-punch
errors, or paying for disconnected services", stated
the IT Finance Manager.
Next, they needed to eliminate the double data entry of billing
information and service orders, and changes. TTI tailored WinBill's
standard AP export module to meet their criteria for import into
their AP software program. End of double expense entry!
"We eliminated countless hours per month of data entry time
in Accounting and pay bills faster." "WinBill® has
helped eliminate paying late charges and provided us with an immediate
ROI", stated the IT Finance Manager.
In addition they opted to run the SQL Version of WinBill® which
allows synchronization with other databases. TTI assisted in the
developing a link to internal ordering and change management database
to automate entry of the large volume of daily occurring adds,
changes, and cancellation orders for cell phones, pagers, and calling
cards into WinBill®.
Now upon completion of a new service order or changes to an existing
service, WinBill® is automatically updated with the vital information.
End of double service data entry!
"We recently migrated to the SQL version of WinBill® and
it has been great". "We have a robust, centralized database
that holds more information for better expense management." Stated
the IT Finance Manager.
Summary - The IT Finance group is now able to automate the laborious
task of adding new IT services, process an invoice, and allocate
charges back to the proper departments. The Accounts Payable group's
function of manually entering any IT invoice has been eliminated.
Recently TTI added the ability to track contract rates in WinBill®.
This will be an extremely useful feature for managing numerous
contractual relationships. In the future, other IT groups will
be using WinBill® to allocate their billing expenses. In addition
the IT Finance group is in the process of developing several reports
in WinBill® that will be sent automatically to management via
e-mail on a scheduled monthly basis.
WinBill® has saved the IT Finance group time, provided an effective
tool to utilize their resources, and automated their IT billing
environment.
Case Study 002 - WinBill® |
Opportunity |
Solution |
Summary |
Energy Company
Opportunity - The IT Finance group at a large energy company that
operates electricity and natural gas distribution networks serving
customers in seven US states and in Canada and the United Kingdom
began their quest to manage their IT expenses by outsourcing their
billing to an outside service bureau. According to their IT Finance
Manager "it was the usual nightmare". "We were paying
them an exorbitant amount of money and getting zero savings." Next,
IT Finance group opted to develop a homegrown database to help
manage their IT invoices and expenses. Unfortunately, the internal
database was relatively reactive and provided them with very limited
functionality and did not effectively meet their needs for expense
management. The IT Finance group needed a dynamic, proactive software
solution to effectively meet their cost management needs.
First, they needed to automate importing billing information from
their service providers CD billing into a centralized database.
Data used for invoice audit and payment were in separate databases
and needed to be accessible on one platform. The IT Finance group
processes thousands of expense records per month. The accuracy
of billing information was a top priority. It was also critical
that the IT Finance group be able to generate timely and accurate
reports. "We live and die by reports here", said their
IT Finance Manager. "We support our internal IT groups and
they depend on us to provide them with timely and accurate expense
reporting". Senior management required expense information
be available on demand to manage the company. Reports had to be
easily created and sent to management on a timely basis each month.
In addition the expense management database had to be able to export
billing information directly to their PeopleSoft AP software module
for payment.
Solution - While attending a local telecom seminar, the IT Finance
Manager heard about WinBill® from an existing TTI customer.
The IT Finance Manager and his group consulted with the TTI Sales
and Support team and outlined their needs and expectations for
an expense management solution. TTI worked with the IT team to
develop and create a customized, centralized software solution
for auditing IT services and paying invoices.
By electronically importing their local and long distance voice
and data CD billing into WinBill®, the IT group was able to
automate the once lengthy process of manually entering billing
information allowing them to cut time and personnel resources in
half. The electronic import was especially of value with their
800 billing. The energy company received 800 billing that included
multiple sub-accounts and had to manually allocate the individual
account cost for charge back to the appropriate cost center. WinBill® imports
their 800 billing information and allocates specific sub-account
billing information to the correct sub-accounts for accurate charge
back of these costs to the respective cost center.
The IT Finance Manager loves the Alerts functionality in WinBill®.
Alerts provide him with timely notification that certain actions
need to be taken relative to their bills. "
We
are now able to be alerted to billing errors and have eliminated
the problem of misallocated payment of bills".
The IT Finance Manager has developed a Value Contribution Table
and has realized over $400,000 in savings to the company since
he implemented WinBill®.
Reports created in WinBill® have been customized to meet the
specific reporting requirements of management by department and
cost center. All of the reports can be automatically scheduled
to go out on a monthly, weekly or periodic basis and can be exported
to email in about 20 different formats. The reports generated in
WinBill® can also be sent to a printer or to a fax automating
the once time consuming reporting task.
Summary - To best summarize their experience with WinBill® is
to describe a fully meshed, automated proactive billing management
solution that meets their needs. The IT Finance group is able to
effectively keep an accurate inventory of all of their voice, data
and cellular services and pay these expenses all from a centralized
database.
The ROI on the investment in WinBill® has been phenomenal.
Not only has WinBill® saved the company hundreds of thousands
of dollars but also it has allowed IT Finance to cut their time
and personnel resources in half. No need for double data entry
because billing information is exported into their AP software
for simplified payment of expenses. The company's management receives
timely and accurate information about the company's expenses. The
positive, on going results of WinBill® have provided the IT
Finance group with an effective tool to benchmark and evaluate
their performance.
Case Study 003 - WinCall® |
Opportunity |
Solution |
Summary |
University
Opportunity - A large University in the Pacific Northwest needed
to replace their call accounting system. The University needed
to find a call accounting solution that fit their specific call
accounting requirements. Their primary requirements for a replacement
call accounting solution was that it provide flexible functionality,
have an open industry standard database and allow them the ability
to schedule and e-mail ad hoc reports to meet the changing needs
of their internal IT organization.
A major consideration of their evaluation criteria was to select
a company that was adept at consistently providing excellent customer
service and support. Their current call accounting provider did
not reply to their service requests in a timely manner. When they
had questions regarding creating reports or database administration
they frequently had to wait days for a response. Generating reports
was always a time consuming task. The administrative time alone
to manage the Directory Changes and report requests of the users
required up to 30 hours per week. The University has over 45 Department
Managers that need to have monthly management reports on a regularly
scheduled basis. The University needed to automate the scheduling
of reports and have the ability to integrate their internal HR
Directory to automate the daunting task of performing the hundreds
of monthly Adds/Moves/Changes.
"Our
current CAS product does not have the flexible reporting tools
that we need. We need a company that will work with us and understand
our requirements now and in the future", said the Telecommunications Analyst for the
University.
Solution - Upon implementation of WinCall® the University saved
hundreds of hours in daily call accounting administration. The
daily changes of employees, department reorganizations and report
generation have all been eliminated with WinCall®. The addition
of new extensions, ongoing department changes, new hires and organizational
changes has all been automated with WinCall® and its Directory
Integration module. Daily, weekly and monthly reports that were
required of the Administrator have all been automated thanks to
WinCall®. All of the standard reports, as well as the on-going
ad-hoc report requests are now being sent via e-mail to any given
number of recipients.
TTI's WinCall® software has completely automated the University's
Call Accounting administrative needs. Additionally, WinCall® was
able to provide the dynamic functionality that the 5 other systems
the University reviewed said they could add to their applications.
"The
Support Team at TTI is excellent" stated the Telecommunications
Manager .
"Not only are we able to talk to a live person when
we call but we receive prompt assistance and answers to all of
our questions. We were asked recently to produce reports that we
thought were impossible. The WinCall® Support team helped us
to create these reports in less than an hour! On another occasion
we received several threatening phone calls. We contacted TTI for
assistance and they helped us create a report in WinCall to determine
the origin of the calls which helped us provide documentation to
the local Police Department to identify the offender. " said
the Telecommunications Manager.
Summary - The University is now embarking on implementing TTI's
WinCall® on the Web application to allow the Department Managers
to generate their own reports, using a secure web page. Now, in
addition to the receipt of e-mailed reports, administrators can
generate reports wherever and whenever they want, all with an Internet
browser.
"The quality, design and ease of implementation of WinCall® are
the result of significant product development. The knowledgeable
and helpful support team is a pleasure to work with. Having a company
that truly listens to your needs can make a big difference in the
software implementation process. ", stated the WinCall® administrator.
Case Study 004 - WinCall® |
Opportunity |
Solution |
Summary |
International Motor Sports Entertainment Company
Opportunity - An internationally renowned Motor Sports Entertainment
Company is a leading promoter of motor sport activities in the
United States. They currently promote more than 100 motor sports
events each year. The Company wanted a call accounting system that
would provide them with the ability to automate the myriad of Adds,
Moves and Changes that they do on a daily basis for all of their
locations. With geographically disbursed locations throughout the
US they needed to generate and evaluate information on call activity
and distribute, schedule and export this information on a timely
basis to their management.
Solution - The robust, automated features of WinCall provides the
Motor Sports Entertainment Company with the call accounting tools
they need. WinCall's PBX Integration tool worked especially well
for automatically updating information for this multi-site Company.
The PBX Integration tool imports 3rd party software from a Nortel
PBX and seamlessly updates over 15 different sites extension, user
name, department, cost center information to their WinCall call
accounting software.
The PBX Integration feature saved valuable time and resources and
ensured accuracy on their WinCall reports. The Company also utilizes
WinCall's powerful Digits Reporting tool. This reporting tool allows
them to identify each of the numbers dialed from each site giving
more precise information for the number dialed. For example, a
number to another site location can be entered and defined in WinCall
and when the reports are run, the City /State and number dialed
can be replaced with a site name or other information that better
describes the site. This provides the Company with the information
they need to identify calling trends to and from all of their locations.
The flexibility of WinCall's reporting functionality allows the
Telecom Manager to automatically schedule and export reports to
management's email addresses on a weekly basis.
"I would spend
hours creating reports each week". "Now all reports are
scheduled to go out weekly and are automatically exported to management's
email addresses for their review", said the Telecom Manager.
Summary - The Motorsports Entertainment Company has automated the
once laborious task of entering all of their Adds, Moves and Changes
in their telephony environment. Because of the ever constant changing
culture of their environment this tool has allowed the Telecom
Department to meet critical time demands for tracking accurate
information. In addition, the Telecom Manager has eliminated the
time consuming task of having to create and send reports. The Telecom
Manager estimates that he has cut his administrative time spent
on call accounting activities by 35% using the dynamic applications
within WinCall.
"The WinCall
System paid for itself in 2 months as a result of the labor saved
and helped us to further reduce costs by helping us find and eliminate
several unused trunks, " said
the Telecom Analyst.
More importantly, the meaningful reports generated in WinCall that
management receives each week allows them to better track and understand
calling trends that determine where to put their marketing muscle
for upcoming motor sports events.
