Telecom audit: how to run your own first pass on carrier bills

A telecom audit is a review of what you are billed for telecom services against what you actually have and what you agreed to pay. You can do a useful first pass yourself with one invoice, last month's invoice and a list of what you disconnected. It will find charges that kept billing after a disconnect, rates that moved and lines billed twice. It will not tell you whether your contract rates are fair.

This guide covers what that first pass looks like, what it needs, where it stops, and when an outside auditor or a platform is the better choice.

What does a telecom audit actually look at?

Audits come in layers, and it helps to know which one you are doing.

• Invoice audit. Each line on each carrier invoice, compared with last month and with your own disconnect records. This is the layer you can do yourself, and the one this guide is about. The telecom invoice audit guide goes through the line checks in detail.
• Inventory audit. A full list of every circuit, number and line you have, who uses it and where it is. It tells you what you should be paying for.
• Contract audit. Billed rates against the rate card, discounts and term commitments in your agreement. It needs the contract and the carrier's tariffs and is where a specialist usually earns their fee.

A first pass on the invoices alone is the cheapest of the three and the only one that needs nothing but files you already have.

What do you need for a first pass?

• The last two months of invoices for each carrier, as a CSV or Excel line export where the carrier offers one, otherwise a text PDF. The latest month is checked against the earlier one, so you need both for rate changes.
• A disconnect list. Service ID and disconnect date, as you recorded them. This is the input only you have, and it is what makes the audit find zombie lines: services you cancelled that still bill. If you do not have one, start it today from your cancellation emails and carrier tickets.
• An hour of quiet, or a script that does the reading. Reading a couple of hundred lines per carrier by eye is where the time goes.

What can a first pass find?

Four kinds of line are worth chasing:

1. Recurring charges after a disconnect date. The carrier never processed the cancellation, or processed it late. The charge repeats monthly, so the money at stake grows each month until someone looks.
2. Rate changes. A recurring charge at a new rate since last month. It might be a promotional period ending, a surcharge or an error. The audit shows the change; asking the carrier shows the reason.
3. Duplicates. The same service, description, period and amount twice, on one invoice or across two invoices from the same carrier and month.
4. Repeated one-time charges. A reconnect or install fee that shows up again the following month for the same service and amount.

What can a first pass not find?

Be honest about the limits, because they decide whether you need more.

• Whether a rate is right for your contract. Comparing with last month shows a change. It does not show whether last month's rate was correct either.
• Tax and surcharge errors. Checking a regulatory fee or a tax rate needs the carrier's rules and your locations.
• Services you never knew you had. The audit checks lines against your disconnect list and last month's bill. A circuit nobody recorded is only noticed if it is new this month.
• Usage and call detail. Overage and per-minute charges need a different kind of analysis.

If your spend is large or your contracts are complicated, an auditing firm or a telecom expense management (TEM) platform covers more of this. See the telecom expense management software guide for how the two paths compare.

How do you run it, step by step?

1. Export or download the latest and previous invoice per carrier and put their lines in rows: service ID, description, period, quantity, rate, amount.
2. Clean the service IDs the same way on every sheet, uppercasing and stripping spaces, dots and dashes.
3. Compare each line's cleaned ID with the disconnect list, and flag recurring lines whose period runs past the date. For a period that starts before the date, count the days after it, since the last month is often prorated.
4. Match lines to last month on service ID and description, and list the ones whose rate moved by more than you care about.
5. Sort for duplicates and look for repeated one-time charges.
6. Write the findings per carrier with account, invoice number, service ID, line, amount and reason, and send them through the carrier's dispute channel.

How Carrier Bill Check does the first pass

Carrier Bill Check takes the invoices you upload (PDF, Excel or CSV) and reads every line, you review what it read, and it runs the checks above against your disconnect list and the prior month. It lists the findings with dollars, exports the open ones as a CSV and writes a plain-text dispute note per carrier. It does not read contracts, check taxes or contact carriers. A scanned PDF has no text, so its lines are typed in by you.

To see a first pass without signing up, open the free run: the sample shows a circuit billed after its disconnect date, a rate that rose 18% and a line charged twice, and your own CSV or Excel invoice shows its lines and any duplicates. For the habit of doing this every month, see telecom expense audit.

Frequently asked questions

Should I hire a telecom auditor or do it myself?

Start with the first pass above. It costs files and an hour, and tells you whether there is anything to find. If your contracts are complex, your spend is large or you want tax and tariff checks, an auditor or TEM platform covers things an invoice check does not.

How far back can I dispute a charge?

It depends on the carrier and your contract, so read both. Do not assume a long window; the sooner a charge after a disconnect is raised, the fewer months there are to argue about.

What is a zombie line?

A line or circuit you disconnected that still appears on the carrier's invoice as a recurring charge. Comparing each bill with your own disconnect list is how you find them.