Proof Positive: New Feature Takes Charge of Complex Billing
By Sarah Smith
Who hosts your company’s automated conference calls? Do you have a go-to guy who takes on all the responsibility, or is it a free-for-all? 
If your company is a law firm, advertising agency or public relations company (to name just a few possibilities), it’s possible you fall into the free-for-all category. Probably several different people lead their own, individual conferences.
With so many meetings being held within a firm, it’s also likely that the people in your billing department are tearing their hair out, trying to get the invoicing right. If only a system existed that told the billing department who used the conferencing system, with which client, on what project…
Tracking Code Plus© and Tracking Code Manager©
Such a system does exist. Infinite Conferencing is introducing Tracking Code Plus© & Tracking Code Manager©, a feature that allows companies to easily track reservationless conference calls.
“It’s a way for our clients to better manage their expenses,” says Keith Maddox, president and co-founder of the Millburn, N.J.-based Infinite Conferencing. “It will allow them to control their conferencing usage and costs.”
Law firms in particular have requested this kind of service--when so many attorneys host calls, it can make for an accounting mess, Maddox says.
Infinite Conferencing responded to these firms’ request and went a step further than other conferencing vendors. Competing services may prompt users to enter client or project codes for conference calls, but only Infinite Conferencing offers real-time tracking code validation.
This makes a big difference: “A lot of our peers in the marketplace have the ability to capture a billing code at the start of a call, but they can’t validate it,” Maddox explains. “So a user can enter the wrong code and get through, or simply bypass it.”
So, for those using a system without Tracking Code Plus ©, that means even more hair-tearing: At the end of the month, when the billing department is going through costs, it will receive conferencing bills with incomplete and inaccurate data. “There will be some charges with no client code or with the wrong client code,” he says.
With Tracking Code Plus ©, Infinite Conferencing’s clients can see exactly who made the calls because all of the conferencing hosts have to use verified codes. When a user dials into the system to host the call, he must enter the correct code or he won’t be able to start his conference. “It will not allow them to bypass it, it will force them to enter a valid code,” says Maddox.
Tracking Code Plus © can easily be added to an existing conferencing account, and administrators within the firm can add, change or delete codes online with Tracking Code Manager ©, or Infinite Conferencing can provide this administration for you.
Codes can also be tailored to the type of company using the system. Where law firms are likely to bill by client code, marketing or PR firms can use project codes instead.
“We don’t have just a generic prompt,” Maddox adds. “It will fit the client who’s using it. It’s another example of us making our service as user-friendly as possible. We give our clients the ability to track their expenses and, in so doing, better manage their business.”
That makes for a lot less hair-tearing all around--for those using the system, but especially for those keeping track of usage.
About the author
Sarah Smith is a contributor to ConferencingNews. Based in Los Angeles, Sarah has reported and written for leading telecommunications and technology publications. She may be reached at sarah.s@betuitive.com.
