Telecoms billing differs from general subscription billing because much of the revenue comes from usage that arrives as carrier call records, in formats that vary by carrier, and has to be rated against each customer’s tariff before it can be invoiced. A platform that handles that well, and checks the result before invoices go out, removes most of the manual work. One that does not leaves the hardest part of billing in a spreadsheet.
This guide covers the features to assess when choosing a telecoms billing platform or reviewing your current one, and the questions that test each one in a demonstration.
Key Takeaways
- CDR processing should read your carriers’ formats, rate calls against your tariffs and flag unrated or unusual records before billing
- Pricing should support the tariffs, bundles, allowances and markups you sell, configured by your own team
- A branded customer portal reduces routine requests for invoices and usage
- Integration with accounting and other systems avoids re-keying, through a dedicated integration or an API
- Reporting should show margin by customer, service and carrier, not only revenue
1. CDR Processing and Checks
Call detail records are the source of usage revenue, so the platform’s handling of them matters most.
- Format coverage. Each carrier supplies CDRs in its own layout. Check that the platform reads the formats from your current carriers, and how a new format is added. SAFE reads 85+ UK carrier formats.
- Delivery. Files may arrive by upload, email, FTPS or API. Check which delivery methods your package supports and how missing files are spotted.
- Rating. Each call should be allocated to a customer by number and priced by a defined set of rules, with a record of which tariff or markup produced the price.
- Checks before billing. Look for a report of calls that could not be allocated or rated, and of figures that differ sharply from previous months, before invoices are produced.
Question to ask in a demonstration: bring a sample file from one of your carriers and ask to see it imported, rated and checked.
2. Pricing Flexibility
Resellers sell in different ways, and the platform should support how you price rather than limit it:
- Tariffs by destination, call type and time of day, at customer, number or service level
- Markups on wholesale cost for call classes where you do not publish a rate
- Bundles and allowances, such as inclusive minutes with usage beyond them charged at tariff rates
- Recurring charges on their own intervals, billed in advance or arrears, with pro-rating
- Promotional pricing with defined start and end dates
- Scheduled price changes applied from an effective date
Question to ask: can your own team set up a new tariff or bundle, or does it need the supplier? Our guide to improving reseller margins covers pricing strategy in more detail.
3. A Branded Customer Portal
A white-label portal lets customers view and download invoices, check usage and pay online under your brand. It answers routine requests for copy invoices and usage without staff involvement.
Check what the portal shows on each package, whether you can control access by customer type, and whether it can run on your own domain. In SAFE, invoices are included on every package, with usage, payments and recent calls on the larger packages and a custom domain from Premium. The customer portal page has the detail.
4. Integration With Other Systems
Wherever the same information exists in two systems, it needs keeping consistent. The integrations that matter most for resellers are:
- Accounting software, so invoices and payments reach the ledger without re-keying. SAFE has a dedicated Xero integration, included on Enterprise and available as an add-on on Premium.
- CRM, so customer and service details agree between sales and billing. SAFE CRM, in early access, uses the billing records directly.
- Provisioning, so services start billing from the date they go live.
Where there is no dedicated integration, an API lets your developers connect systems. Check what the API can read and write on your package, whether it supports webhooks, and whether there is a sandbox for testing.
5. Reporting and Margin
Revenue figures alone do not show whether a customer or service is profitable. Look for:
- margin by customer, service and carrier, based on wholesale costs from the carrier records
- reports of services billing below cost
- customer growth and losses over time
- aged debt and collection results
Question to ask: can the platform show which customers or services were unprofitable last month without exporting to a spreadsheet?
6. Compliance Support
The platform cannot make you compliant, but it should support the records compliance depends on:
- VAT applied correctly to each service type, with digital records for Making Tax Digital
- an audit trail from each charge to its source record and rate
- contract dates for end-of-contract notifications, and support for pounds-and-pence price-rise letters
- access controls, audit logs and UK data hosting for data protection
Our UK telecoms billing compliance guide covers the rules themselves.
Assessing a Platform
A demonstration is most useful when it follows your own data. Bring a carrier file, a few representative customers with their tariffs and recurring charges, and a recent billing query. Ask to see each taken through rating, invoicing and collection, and how the query would be answered. That shows how the platform handles your business rather than a prepared example. For the costs of continuing with a manual process, see the hidden costs of manual telecoms billing.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is telecoms billing software?
Telecoms billing software imports call detail records from carriers, rates them against customer tariffs, adds recurring charges, produces invoices and tracks payments. For UK resellers it replaces billing from spreadsheets with a system that runs the whole cycle.
How many CDR formats should a billing platform support?
Enough to cover your current carriers and any you are likely to add, with a clear process for adding new formats. SAFE supports 85+ UK carrier formats, and new ones can usually be added on request.
Do I need API access in my billing platform?
If you run a CRM, accounting or provisioning system alongside billing, an integration avoids re-entering data. That can be a dedicated integration, such as Xero, or the API. In SAFE, API access is read-only on Standard and read and write on Premium and Enterprise.
Can I brand my customer portal?
Yes. A white-label portal carries your logo and colours, and on SAFE’s Premium and Enterprise packages it can run on your own domain.
To see these features against your own carriers and tariffs, arrange a demonstration.