ISPs and CLECs handle millions of phone bill line items each year, and one company has software to make it much easier, saving hours and hours of time.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [March 17, 2006]

Tom Nolting, senior director of financial assurance services for Colchester, Vt.-based Vertek Corporation, knows phone bills. In 15 years at Verizon, he held a variety of positions, including being the guy in charge of the company's $1.3 billion carrier billing organization.

After working at Verizon, Nolting joined Lavastorm Technologies, a billing analysis company recently acquired by the UK-based billing and CRM software provider Martin Dawes.

At Vertek, Nolting and his team have built a revenue assurance solution for carriers that is based on the Lavastorm solution.

The software takes invoices and even call records from various sources and provides a unified data format. Nolting points out that bills can vary widely. They can vary in period of time covered (i.e. weekly, monthly, billed on the 5th and 25th of every month, billed per use). Different carriers can use different numbering systems for the same service. The same carrier may bill differently in different U.S. states, following tariffs filed in each state. Untangling the mess is a job for software, not humans.

MFAP Revenue Asssurace Display	MFAP Invalid Carrier Dispatch Charges Display

The analysis is handled at Vertek's data center in Colchester. "Customers would otherwise have to invest in their servers," says Nolting.

In addition to lining up the billing periods, the software checks each charge against the tariff and also matches invoices against purchase records, checking for services that weren't ordered but are being billed for, a common problem in the ISP industry. The software also makes sure that tariffs are applied correctly.

Finally, the software checks that the ISP's own pricing is accurate. A common error, says Nolting, is ISPs that continue to price at promotional levels for some customers after the promotion has expired.

"We don't fix exceptions," says Nolting. "We specify exactly what the discrepancies are and the CLEC decides the corrective action. It could be an extra charge if a customer is paying for a minimum bandwidth DSL package and receiving premium bandwidth. The corrective action is to notify the customer that they will now be billed correctly or just to make a change to the account."

Once all the data is collated, Vertek offers trending and graphing tools, allowing customers to key in on what interests them. Though Nolting feels Vertek has anticipated what CLECs will be interested in, he says that a company recently wanted to break out profit margins by vendor, and that required some work.

Vertek also offers premium consulting services, helping with transitions from one network to another and helping with forecasting.

Pricing and availability
Vertek's Managed Financial Assurance Program (MFAP) is available now. Pricing differentiates between core and premium services, and is a flat monthly fee based on the volume of costs managed.

The company will be demonstrating its product at the upcoming COMPTEL trade show.

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