How to Account for Cloud-Based VoIP Expenditures in Your Organization - XINIX

How To Account For Cloud Based VoIP Expenditures In Your Organization

Often, technology expenditure solely falls on the IT department. In the past, this accounting strategy made a lot of sense when procuring and managing of the majority of solutions was carried out by IT. However, the current cloud-intensive business environments are diversifying the control of technology expenditure throughout your organization. For example, according to Gartner, there will be a 0.5% reduction in the IT budgets this year (2016) and this makes it crucial to maximizing the funding that is available.

Your cloud-based Voice Over Internet Protocol system might go through the process of procuring and deploying through the help of It, but then your most significant usage usually comes from the other departments. You might also be faced with the challenge of end users selecting their own cloud vendors without seeking prior approval. Adopt the strategies that follow to boost the accounting and management of VoIP within your organization.

Standardizing Procurement

Shadow IT, an environment that is brought about by non-IT departments procuring unapproved technology purchases could place the integrity of your VoIP communications at a risky spot. Research carried out by Ponemon Institute indicated that 26% of the applications that are utilized in the business environment were not authorized before implementation. It is quite normal for departments and teams to take matters into their hands the moment the find solutions that boost their productivity. But then, they might fail to notify the CFO or the Finance about the purchase and this makes it virtually impossible for accurate gauging of VoIP expenses. A standardized policy of procurement however, will place everyone on the same page. Non-IT departments will have control over their solutions and the costs of cloud-based VoIP will be accurately accredited to this line of business.

Another helpful cloud policy touches on the requirements of the vendors. Before the purchase of a cloud-based solution by a non-IT department, the service provider has to meet some specific requirements. For instance, the vendor has to deliver security that is as strong as the technology on your premises, provide data migration services and implement strict control measures when it comes to allowing access. The department will still search for VoIP solution to match their needs and lower the risk of security complications at the same time.

Assign Cost Responsibility Through Usage

Almost every other individual in your company requires access to the VoIP system in order to carry on with their work responsibilities. Nevertheless, passing on cost responsibility is not as easy as equally spreading the expenditures throughout the organization. Sales and customer service are heavily reliant on this technology for daily business operations. Your team of software development however, only utilizes video conferencing say, once every week to communicate with the remote engineers.

Keep in mind the actual usage stats of your VoIP solutions whenever you analyze your budget. Compute the cost responsibility with reference to this value, instead of splitting the expenditures on the basis of the original procurement team or size of the department.

Audit Current Services

Are maximizing on the current cloud-based VoIP services in your company? The primary benefit of the cloud is bringing scalability to your business. Even so, you might not always select the right options when you start out with a solution. You may overestimate then ends up with lots of untapped capacity. If your company is struggling with Shadow IT, then there is a good chance that you have paid-for services abandoned by the original crew.

Carry out an audit of your cloud-based Voice Over Internet Protocol system and make the necessary adjustments as required so that you can find the right scale of expanding your business without wastage of your expenditure. Use a discovery tool of the cloud services to monitor your outgoing network traffic so that you can track down services that haven’t been approved. After your audit, get rid of any cloud-based VoIP software that isn’t efficient then connect with the department to come up with a more practical solution.
Your cloud-based Voice Over Internet Protocol solutions add scalability, flexibility and in-depth integration to the operations of your business. But then, you must have a comprehensive strategy for management of the potential expenditure problems within your company. The right combination of governance, insight and policies is going to provide you with a clear outlook on the cost responsibility if VoIP out of the IT department.

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