to Call Accounting. One is about the boss using the system to discover that one of the employees was regularly calling the boss' house during the day to talk to the boss' wife. Another story is how a company manager had a huge box wheeled through the office with "Call Accounting System" writ- ten in big letters on both sides. Even though the box was empty, the company's telephone bill dropped dramatically in the fol- lowing month. When employees believe that their calls are being tracked, they think twice before making personal telephone calls. Some companies obtain reports on each employee's home tele- phone number to determine the amount of time being spent on personal business. What Goes Wrong with an On-Site Call Accounting System In order to keep the Call Accounting system operating well, it is important to run the reports regularly. If you are using the system to generate the actual cost of the call, it is also important The Telecom Handbook - 125 CALL ACCOUNTING & TELEMANAGEMENT SYSTEMS to keep the rates in the system up to date. Many organizations neglect this and thus the reports are not accurate. PC based Call Accounting systems can lock up, as can any PC based application. Having a back up procedure is important. Once call records are sent from the PBX, the PBX cannot recre- ate them. Occasionally, there are problems with the RS-232 connec- tion between the PBX and the Call Accounting system or storage device. This needs to be checked regularly since, again, once call records are lost they cannot be resent by the PBX. Predicting the Future of Call Accounting These thoughts are from an article in Business Communica- tions Review by Dave Lidyard. "Most organizations are using the Internet and World Wide Web and some are branching out into areas such as voice over IP and wireless voice and data access. However, few enterprises are tracking and charging back these costs as they do with traditional voice call accounting systems. Among call accounting vendors, it is widely anticipated that converged applicat