The CostMedia.com FAQ

How does the service produce cost savings for CostMedia clients?

The CostMedia service generates cost savings in 4 main ways:

• Reduced administration overheads and streamlined bill reporting to individual phone users and their managers. Paper processing is eliminated and managers are given the ability to control costs within their cost centres. Allocation of charges to cost centres and other reporting groups is automated.
• Staff are empowered to self-regulate their own usage - they are given usage and cost information for their service for each billing cycle.
• Unused, unallocated or unknown mobile phone services are highlighted and can be eliminated or corrected.
• Personal use calls and business calls that can be on-charged to your own external clients can be identified and recovered.

How many mobile phones does my company need to have before the CostMedia service becomes cost effective?

The CostMedia bill reporting service helps companies to save money in several ways - less time spent on mobile phone administration, ensuring accuracy of bills, reduction in call charges due to employee self-regulation of usage, closer scrutiny and transparency of costs at the cost centre or work group level and company level as well as personal use cost recovery. We would expect that any company with more than 20 phones will see some benefit resulting in mainly from the reduction in reduction of unnecessary calls and personal use costs.

How much does the service cost?

The cost of the service depends on a number of factors related to what services your company requires, reporting frequency and requirements and so on. Generally we charge a one-off fee for the initial fleet audit and database setup, followed by a monthly charge based on the services utilised and the number of handsets. We can also undertake consulting work as required for traffic analysis, competitive tender preparation and analysis. Consulting work is generally charged on a per hour basis or as a fixed cost arrangement.

Where does the electronic billing data come from?

We source the electronic billing data from the carriers. Each of the major carriers will supply this data on request to their corporate clients.

What information does my cost centre or divisional manager get to see?

Managers receive reports detailing the costs of each phone in their reporting group. They have the ability to drill down to see all the individual call details for each of their staff. They are able to compare previous bills with current bills. They do not have the ability to alter call details or allocate calls as Personal Use or Business Use.

What are the steps involved in implementing the service for my company?

This will depend on a number of factors including the number of mobile phones you have, whether or not you already get electronic billing and how accurate the information you have about the current users and status of your mobile phones is. Please contact CostMedia for more information.

Is CostMedia independent of the phone suppliers, and how does the CostMedia service effect the relationship between my company and our phone suppliers?

CostMedia is completely independent We can take billing feeds from any of the major carriers. Your relationship with your suppliers does not need to change unless you want it to. Ordinarily we simply provide a value add service that enables you to reduce costs and manage your mobile phone fleet more effectively. However, due to our expertise in Carrier relationship management, SLA's and competitive tender processes we are in an ideal position to assist you in getting a better deal from your carriers.

We want to make all our staff pay their own bills and then claim business calls back from the company whilst still getting the pricing benefit of our corporate plan. Can this be done?

Yes. We can simply set the default for all calls to be set to "Personal Use". Your staff will need to log on to the web site each month to identify business calls. At the end of the billing cycle the remaining Personal Use call costs can be debited via payroll deduction or credit card payment. Your company will continue to pay the phone bill as normal.

We are only interested in having staff allocate calls to destinations where the total cost of all calls to that destination is above a certain dollar level. Can this be done?

Yes, this is a feature of the system and is built into our workflow process. This saves your staff time by eliminating the need to scan through the entire bill.

How does the system handle the GST?

The system is GST compliant. GST costs can be centralised into one cost centre if you wish.

Can calls outside certain time bands be defaulted to be "Personal Use"?
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What level of report customisation is available for specific classes of user (e.g.: senior staff)?

Yes. User's are assigned to a User Group which is separate to cost centre and other reporting groups. Each User Group can be set up with a Reporting Profile that enables customised reporting including the ability to set Personal Use timebands.

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