Why your telecom bill is unreadable — and what it hides

What we find when we read it

Every time we take over a business's phone system, we start with its latest bill. Almost every time, we find:

• Lines for extensions that no longer exist. The employee left two years ago; their line is still billed, because nobody thought to cancel it and the provider has no interest in pointing it out.
• Forgotten numbers. An old campaign number, a fax line that was unplugged, the number from the previous address.
• "Network fees," "cost recovery fees" or "regulatory fees" added at the bottom, matching no service and sometimes amounting to 10 to 15% of the total.
• "Per-seat" plans that count every employee, including those who almost never pick up the phone.
• Minutes billed when calls within Canada and to the United States cost nothing to carry anymore.

Why it is unreadable

Because a readable bill gets checked, and a checked bill shrinks. Service names are codes, groupings are by fee type rather than by site or by person, and the detail is available only on request.

How to read it anyway

1. Take the list of your current employees and sites.
2. For each line on the bill, ask: "which employee, which site, what use?" Every line without an answer is a candidate for cancellation.
3. Add up what has no answer. That figure is what your bill hides from you, every month.
4. Ask the provider for the list of your active numbers. Compare it to the ones you use.

What an invoice should look like

• One line per item, named the way you name it: "Extension 201 — Reception," "Number 450 555-0101 — Service," not a code.
• The same name in the portal and on the invoice, so the person reading the bill can remove what no longer serves without calling anyone.
• Prices published in advance, so nothing else shows up on the invoice.
• No fees added after the fact. If it isn't on the price list, it doesn't exist.

That is the invoice we issue, and it is why our prices are public.

The habit to build

Once a quarter, open your provider's portal — if it has one — and compare the list of billed extensions and numbers to reality. If you can't do it in ten minutes, the problem isn't your time.