The Cost Controller link, available from the Analyze tab in your Tool Bar, opens the Cost Controller search tool. Cost Controller features help you to:
· View a summary of all services monthly usage and charge information.
· Search for configurable charges or profile durations.
· Filter results by a charge or profile duration category by common operators (>, >=, <, <=, =, not =).
· Search for a particular employee or group of employees to investigate their usage and cost trends.
· Identify services where charge patterns have changed when compared with previous three months’ average using the Charge Trend alerts (market cycle).
· View averages and totals for usage and charges accrued for a department or group of employees.
Note: Some of the features available in Premium Mobile may be restricted by your administrator or your Client Settings.
To use the Cost Controller, perform the following steps:
1. From the Analyze tab in your Tool Bar, click Cost Controller.
2. In the Cost Controller screen:
a. Select a Billing Date from the drop-down list.
b. Select either the Invoice Cycle or Market Cycle radio button.
The Invoice Cycle perspective is helpful when viewing new data just released by your carrier(s). Invoice periods run approximately 30 days in length and will include a variety of Market Cycle end dates.
Note: While the Invoice Cycle perspective may help you better understand your carrier invoices, it is very important that you continue to pay your bills based on the totals shown on the invoice your carrier sends you. Never pay an invoice based on data displayed on your wireless management Website.
The Market Cycle perspective represents a monthly grouping of all billing data with market cycle end dates that fell in the month you selected. Since invoices rarely run from the beginning of a single month to the end of that same month, it is likely that the Market Cycle perspective will not match the Invoice Cycle perspective. Carrier market cycle periods run approximately 30 days in length and have a variety of cut-off dates for billing that are market specific. The Market Cycle perspective is helpful in examining historical usage or charge data when comparing this data from month to month. This information may help you identify billing errors and instances of double billing.
c. Select either the Billed Charges or Usage-Based Charges radio button.
d. Enter or select your search parameters including Last Name, First Name, User ID, Alias, Service Number, Service Type, Device Type, Carrier, Hierarchy, and/or Department.
Search parameters help you limit the number items returned by your query. You may include parameters designed to return a specific group. You do not need to enter or select any parameters. The length of time taken to return search results is proportional to detail you provide.
All text entry fields are wildcard enabled. You may use asterisks to search by partial field, for example: *415* or smi*.
You may select a point in the Hierarchy drop-down list to search only that hierarchy.
The Department drop-down list displays the departments within your selected Hierarchy.
Use the Include Sub-Departments check box to specify whether or not you want to search all sub-departments under the Department you selected.
To quickly locate a Department level, you may enter a partial department reference in the QuickFind text box.
e. If you want, use the Call Profile and Charges I, II, and III drop-down lists to configure the charge categories you want to display.
You may make a selection from the Call Profile drop-down to add a column to your results that includes duration values calculated from the call detail.
The default Charges I, II, and III search displays Usage Charges, Non-Usage Charges, and Total Charges. You may switch the defaults to display any of the following charge categories: Access, Overage, Roaming, Long Distance, Equipment, Features, Discounts, Taxes, Adjustments, or Chgs/Credits.
f. Select your Filter options.
The Filter options allow you to limit your results for one of the call profile or charge categories. By default, all results will be displayed.
To use a filter, select a category from the Show Users With drop-down list, select an operator to apply (>, >=, <, <=, =, not =) and enter a threshold value. In the following example, your search results would be limited to all services with usage charges greater than or equal to $250.
You may also enter the % of results you would like to display. This feature works with the selection you made from the Show Users With drop-down list. You may leave the default (100%) to view all results, or you may choose a lower percentage of the top results to display. For example, you may choose to display only the 10% of calls with the highest charges.
g. Choose whether or not you want to Display Snapshot View.
Display Snapshot View disables the Currency drop-down list and sets the value. Totals can not be summed across currencies.
h. Enter the number of records you would like to display on a single page.
i. Select the display Currency (when the option is available).
Native currency is the currency used on an invoice. Common currency is a currency you select for display. For example, if you have carriers from the US and Great Britain, selecting a common currency of USD converts the display currency on invoices that were loaded in British pounds to USD.
j. Click the Search button.
The Search Results section displays the calls that matched your parameters. You may click a column header once to sort that column from A-Z for text fields and highest to lowest for numeric fields. You may click a second time to resort the column from Z-A or lowest to highest.
If you chose the Market Cycle perspective, a trend alert will display in the 
column. The current month is compared to previous months with one of the following results:
· High (red) = greater than +/-50% variance in total charges.
· Moderate (orange) = +/- 25% to +/-50% variance in total charges.
· Minimal (green) = +/- 25% variance in total charges.
· Not enough data (gray) = insufficient data (N/A) (less than 3 months' worth of data are available for analysis).
The rating is calculated by comparing the current month to an average of the last three months (Current month + Last Month + Second to Last Month divided by 3). The alerts appear for cellular and paging accounts only.
Note: Charge trend alerts are meant to identify variances in charge patterns but are not a predictor of rate plan appropriateness. For example, a cellular user that is marked with a green indicator for minimal change could consistently be using more minutes than are included in their rate plan or accruing charges for roaming while he or she is traveling. Obviously neither of these conditions is desirable in terms of rate plans, but the user still has a green indicator to show that charges have remained steady.
You may click the 
icon to open the User Summary Charges screen where you may view the most recent month and the previous two months charges for the selected employee.
You may click the 
icon to open the Call Profile screen where you may view an analysis of the types of usage activities for the selected employee.
You may click a User link to access the User Profile page.
