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Mobility Fraud, Abuse & Waste – The Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) Connection

Sarbanes Oxley regulations passed by U.S. Congress in 2002 was designed to protect investors from fraudulent accounting activities by corporations. The intent of SOX is to detect and deter fraudulent or improper financial reporting by concentrating on issues related to the preparation of financial statements, issuer reporting/disclosure and audit failures. SEC Chairman, Mary Jo White introduced a policy to police technical, non-fraud violations. In explaining the policy, Chairman White stated, “minor deficiency violations that are overlooked or ignored and can feed bigger significant deficiencies, and, perhaps more importantly, can foster a culture where laws are increasingly treated as toothless guidelines”. The concept stems from the idea that even leaving small unaddressed discrepancies conveys a lack of importance and diligence to the maintenance of accurate reporting and accounting.

Out-of-control spending on mobility embodies an innate possibility of internal control deficiencies revealing instances that may rise to the level of material weakness requiring SEC filings and potential restatement of earnings. The opportunity to inadvertently misappropriate company funds presents itself daily and often goes unnoticed and why our utility customers use MobilSentry™ as a safeguard to protect their mobile assets.  Click here to read our savings tip, The Threat of Out-of-Control Mobility Costs to Sarbanes Oxley Compliance.

Time-Tested Wireless Optimization Techniques

As technology evolves, so do the ways in which it is managed. When we first launched our mobile expense management solution in 2001, our focus was simple: to help companies reduce their wireless expense spend through invoice optimization. It alone can reduce wireless expense anywhere from 5-30%. That was 16 years ago and nothing presents more opportunity for wireless cost savings than now! Prompted by the carrier’s transition to data centric rate plans and with the rapid growth in data usage fueled by an explosion of data hungry smartphones apps, the savings starts by making the right pooling choices.

When it comes to wireless invoices, cost saving opportunities come in many flavors but the first and most obvious place is to strike a balance each month between minimizing overage charges while not over paying for too much data that goes unused. Doing this at a minimum cost also requires an understanding that carriers offer different pooling models. There is one that offers the lowest cost based on your company’s device count and average GBs used per device.

From this starting point, there is always savings when it comes to identifying zero-use devices needlessly running up charges, along with unneeded feature charges, and periodic billing errors that often go unnoticed.

We can all agree that the carriers’ goal is to provide excellent customer service but it’s not their job to keep your costs at a minimum. If you are interested in learning how to save your company money on its mobility cost, click here to get the ‘Ultimate Guide to Invoice Optimization.

Contingency Model, Fair or Not?

When Savings Contingency Audits Fail Companies

A common way for small to mid-size companies to validate their wireless cost management efforts is to hire a wireless consultant to perform an audit. Knowing a reasonable probability exists that they will find savings, consultants typically charge a contingency fee on identified savings rather than an upfront flat fee because it is an easier sell and they earn more.  Contingency fees can be 25-30% and can last from 12-24 months.

For some companies, an audit becomes a onetime event as they feel they overpaid for the work effort. The idea of having a third party expert review your spending is a plausible solution when a company can’t afford sophisticated in-house automation. Where this model goes awry is the excessive compensation for the consultant.

What if there was a solution that would empower your company to perform regular wireless expense audits using only existing in-house resources? What if your savings opportunity was quantified with no contract? What if you didn’t have to pay a stream of contingency payments? There is such a solution, MobilSentryDIY™.

Click here to learn how your company can have access to an Enterprise strength solution at a fraction of the cost.