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Methods for eliminating error in data entry.

In the process of designing a telecom billing system I discovered some techniques for validating data entry. We noticed that a high percentage of our billing errors came from incorrect data entry.

In the beginning I designed the system to process calls in a near real time manner. This allowed us to see billing errors before they got to the customer. All of the employees could see the reports we generated on a web site. Many times a sales person would point out that their margins for a particular customer were to low or high.

In deciding on a billing system to purchase or outsource it is important to consider how data entry validation is handled. Of course this is a consideration for any system that involves data entry.

Here are some of the techniques we ended up using and a few that were not implemented.

Simple validation

This is what we started out with. The data entry sub system would check for errors in what was being entered at the point of entry. It would check to see if a rate being entered was higher than .50 cents to one dollar and warn the person doing the entry that they could have put a decimal point in the wrong place. Most of the time a wholesale long distance rate per minute would not be above .25 cents.

Other simple things like these were checked such as an e-mail address having the characteristics of an e-mail address.

Historical or Outside Validation

We also implemented a sort of historical validation. The system would check the history of rates in the system for that customer and country / city and warn the entry person if the rate was significantly higher or lower than it had been in the past.

As a part of this it would check the costs entered into the system for that country / city and send a warning if it was lower than the costs from our vendors.

In other systems I have worked with do validation of addresses by checking the address in address hygiene software.

The major problem with this technique is that the entry person could just bypass the warning and keep the error. This happened because there was always a rush to keep the most current rates in the system because of its real time nature.

Manager Sign Off

An attempt to catch continued data entry errors involved flagging rates that the system thought were errors. These were displayed to a supervisor who could go through them and approve the rates as being correct.

A further enhancement that could have been made is a workflow system to allow the supervisor to kick them back to the data entry person for re entry.

In addition one could put the call detail records limbo that were associated with the possibly incorrect rate. These calls could be put in a holding table until the rate was corrected. One issue we had is that if a rate was in a manager approval state the calls would continue to be priced at the old rate. This is the same as having an incorrect rate to begin with.

Dual Entry

Dual entry involves having two rate entry personnel enter the exact same data into temporary rate tables. Each data entry person would have their own area that rates are stored in.

Throughout the day a data entry review system would compare the entries in all the temporary areas looking for matches based on customer, country and/or city. In the case of a telecom billing system, when a match was found it would compare the data that determines the price of a call. (This includes rate, call duration rounding and effective date / time.)

If the comparison of the two rates matched it would then put the data into the live production rate engine tables.

If the two rates did not match the system would put it in a place where a Senior Rate Entry Clerk could decide what needed to be corrected. When the correction is made the system could compare it again and send it on to the billing system.

This same technique is used in other data entry systems that have a high need for accurate data.

The cost for this type of data entry is high but if the inaccuracy of your data is costing you more than hiring a few more data entry personnel it is worth the cost.

Sales Entry With Customer Verification

The two groups with the most interest in the correct entry of rates is the sales person and the customer. So this method involves having the ones who negotiate the rate with the customer enter the data into a rate entry system. When the new price is entered the customer is directed to a web site by an e-mail message or automated phone call.

On the web site the customer would review their rates and sign off on them. Then the rates would be directed into the billing system. If they were not correct the customer could contact the sales person and get it corrected.

Of course this necessitates negotiating the rates far enough in advance so that there is time for the customer to get incorrect rates fixed.

On the plus side this cuts out the need for a separate data entry department and closes the loop between the sales person and the customer in regards to billing errors.

These are some of the ways one could control data entry errors. Various combinations can be used depending on your business processes and culture. I hope they stimulate more ideas on minimizing data entry error.

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