Guide
How to audit a business telecom bill: a monthly checklist
Auditing a telecom bill means comparing it with three things: last month's bill, your list of lines and who uses them, and your contract. This checklist takes you through it in order, whether you have five lines or five hundred.
Updated
Before you start: what to gather
- This month's bill, in full. Ask the carrier for the PDF or a detailed export rather than the summary page. See getting bills from Bell, Rogers and TELUS.
- Last month's bill for the same account.
- Your line list: every phone number, mobile, internet circuit and service, who or what it's for, and its location.
- Your contract or rate sheet, if you negotiated rates.
- Recent changes: lines ordered, cancelled or suspended, and people who joined or left.
The checklist
- Is this a new bill? Check the invoice number, period and total against bills you've already paid. Duplicates happen when bills arrive by both email and post.
- Is the total in line with usual? If it's noticeably higher, find the service that moved before going further.
- Any new charges? Look for any charge description that wasn't on last month's bill.
- One-time charges. Confirm every installation, activation, equipment or service fee was ordered, at the price quoted.
- Third-party charges. Question any premium text, subscription or other company's charges.
- Late fees. If you paid on time, ask for them to be waived.
- Duplicates within the bill. The same charge and amount listed twice.
- Every line against your list. Anything billed that isn't on your list? Anything cancelled or suspended still charged? Anyone who has left still has a line?
- Lines with no usage. A monthly charge with no calls, texts or data, this month and last, is a candidate to suspend, cancel or reassign.
- Unused add-ons. Text, data or long-distance add-ons on lines that didn't use them.
- Rates against your contract. Is each line billed at the contracted rate? Has a promotional rate ended?
- Price changes. Any recurring charge that's different from last month for the same service.
- Overage and roaming. If they recur, a different plan or a travel add-on may cost less.
After the audit
- Write down each problem with the invoice number, the page, the charge and the amount.
- Raise it with the carrier and get a case or ticket number. See how to dispute a telecom billing error.
- Fix the cause: cancel the unused line, remove the add-on, block third-party charges.
- Update your line list so next month's audit starts from the truth.
- Check the next bill for the credit you were promised.
- Code and approve the bill in your accounting software as usual.
When the checklist gets too long
With a handful of lines and one carrier, this takes a few minutes a month. With several carriers, locations and dozens of lines, it doesn't get done every month, and that's when errors pile up.
Conduit TEM does the checklist on every bill it reads: it keeps the line list itself (built from your bills), compares each bill with the ones before and with your contracts, and turns anything that looks wrong into a finding with its evidence. Read why a TEM is worth it at any size, or check one bill for free.
FAQ
Common questions
- What is a telecom bill audit?
- A telecom bill audit checks each charge on a phone, mobile or internet bill against what you should be paying: your previous bills, your list of active lines and your contract rates. Its goal is to find errors, unused services and overcharges, and get them credited.
- What do I need to audit a telecom bill?
- The full bill (not just the summary), last month's bill for the same account, a current list of your lines and who uses them, your contract or rate sheet if you have one, and a note of lines ordered or cancelled recently.
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