T h e Te l c o R e v e n u e A s s u r a n c e H a n d b o o k

DESCRIPTION OF BASELINE REPORTS

As we discussed in chapter 2.5, baseline reports are a collection of
reports that provide upper management with an overview of exact-
ly how well overall revenue generation and assurance are working.
This top-level “scorecard” reports on the effectiveness of revenue
assurance activities, and provides a starting point for identifying po-
tential revenue assurance risks.

The most basic baseline reports summarize the key revenue gener-
ation activities at the top level. The reports are made available for
daily and monthly time periods, and summarize revenue recognition
and revenue realization activities for the specified period.

The best way to conceptualize baseline reports is to consider top

management’s three major business questions. Executives do no
care about CDR reports or billing error files. All they want to know,
on a daily basis is:
1. How much money did we earn today? (Revenue recog-
nized)
2. How much money did we invoice today? (Revenue in-
voiced)
3. How much money did we collect today? (Revenue real-
ized)

Once we understand this, we can easily see the kind of reporting

that is needed.

The Time-Phase Challenge

It is easy to determine what top management wants to see regarding
revenue assurance. What is difficult is to determining how to report
it in a way that is intuitively meaningful and at the same time at a
high enough level to allow a manager to make strategic decisions
without pouring through millions of details. (Far too many reve-
nue assurance solutions and reports force managers to read through
many pages of detail and try to draw their own conclusions based on
their interpretations of those details.)

What top management would like to see is a high-level report that

summarizes the entire process of converting Erlangs to dollars at a
glance.

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