and some application-specific software. If you are already performing some form of automated invoice valid- ation, it may be appropriate to review the details of your system to ensure adequate accounting treatment and that all payments made amount to what is due according to applicable contracts, orders, and tariffs (Table 11-2). This is a worse-case approach, and although few organizations pay paper invoices, it assumes that this is the current practice. PRACTICAL IP AND TELECOM FOR BROADCAST ENGINEERING AND OPERATIONS TABLE 11-2 Description Result Acquire Billing File from Telephone Eliminates Paper Company Import Desired Data into Accounting System Eliminates Paper Match Key Fields - Location and Phone Align Phone Bill Data and Internal Reporting Number System Conduct Circuit Inventory Identify and Define Circuit Resources Conduct Equipment Inventory Define Communications Assets Conduct Facility Inventory Define Capacity and Establish Status Conduct Service Inventory Define and Establish Approved Services and Options Conduct Contract and Tariff Audit Establish Approved Pricing as Internal Cost Automated Invoice Validation System Automated invoice validation requires a file from the telephone company. Most, if not all, telephone company-provided billing information is assembled in standard formats and made available on various transport media or transported across a network connection. If no validation system exists, or for whatever reason it's desirable to design and build a new one, the process involves getting a file and proceeding to extract the required information from it. The key fields used to match to department allocation are the location and telephone numbers. Information in these fields must be unique. It is highly likely your organization already has unique location names or numbers. In and of itself, the unique name is not sufficient for full allocation. The telephone number making and receiving calls is unique to the telephone company, and they have their own counterpart to the location name, whi