oices with amounts due by department, loca- tion, and user name satisfactory for feeding the cost allocation process Output a file with taxes and desired details required for alloca- tion and further possible tax treatment Output a file with any or all fees in a format acceptable for use by the accounting and reporting systems This will provide a preliminary look at the difference between manual invoice validation and automated validation. So far the only expenditure is the billing tape (should be under $50 for each telephone company, $100 for one local and one long distance) and the value of the time of the programmer(s). When the bill data of the first service provider(s) is successfully imported into the accounting system, incremental service providers, locations, and service should require less time and occur smoothly. If there are issues with the second, be sure to go back and resolve any common issues with the first one. Over time and with additional service providers, adding more billing into the system will become routine. Establishing Standard Unit Cost Having successfully established a system to validate invoices using the service provider's billing file, now we are in a position to establish cost reference information. Remember, SO far our billing validation used pricing information from the billing tape, not internal cost information. While the two may be the same in theory, in practice and by definition they can't be; otherwise, we have a fox in the henhouse. What we have to do is to establish internal cost infor- mation by scouring contracts and tariffs used to acquire equipment, 11 MANAGING COST OF EQUIPMENT FACILITIES AND SERVICES facilities, and services from each service provider or other source in the case of equipment. Most of the required information is likely already in the accounting system somewhere. The challenge, as usual, is to get access to it and then build a routine to deal with it SO the result is representative of what's desired. Automated pur- chasing systems and some of the more 