Prompted by the need to exercise more control over employee cellular expenditure, Vodacom and Radiospoor have launched a product that allows employers to regulate prepaid cellular recharges by employees.
Corporate Top-Up establishes an allocated rand amount and interval period for each individual employee.
"Many businesses in South Africa are opting to provide employees with prepaid cellular vouchers as opposed to airtime contracts. With corporate airtime contracts, employers tend to only discover that a particular employee is abusing cellphone benefits when the company`s airtime bills arrive one month after the fact," said Joan Joffe, Group Executive - Corporate Affairs of Vodacom.
"Prepaid cellular initially found great favour amongst cellphone users who used it to budget up-front for their cellphone costs. Companies also have budgets to stick to and Corporate Top-Up enables employers to experience the benefits of being able to budget up-front for cellular costs with a minimum of administrative hassle.
"The corporate sector has a need to invest in prepaid cellular solutions for several categories of employees - including sales reps and drivers - whilst no longer wishing to hold stock or administer vouchers, as the risks of fraud, theft and stock loss are too high, said Ms Joffe.
Andrew Springate, Managing Director of Radiospoor, added: "Radiospoor, in partnership with Vodacom, decided to launch this prepaid service to corporate customers as it will enable them to purchase airtime which is simply, securely and automatically downloaded through our website onto any prepaid cellular phone without the use of a PIN number.
"It also offers a simple but effective management tool, which enables them to keep complete control of their cellular airtime usage. "By using Corporate Top Up, businesses are able to ensure that their employees cellphone bills are manageable as the new prepaid product offers a revolutionary service in terms of budgeting, control and contactability for manager and employee alike," says Mr Springate.
The prepaid cellular user`s account is `topped up` with the allocated amount electronically, without the user ever needing to enter a PIN code. A Top Up-user can also plan calls according to when the next recharge is due. Furthermore, only standard Vodago recharge values and airtime windows may be used.
What does Corporate Top Up provide?
Corporate Top Up allows your organisation to manage and control cellular airtime spend with minimal administration. You simply click on the Radiospoor website to purchase airtime and the phone that you requested to be supplied with airtime will be. In addition, the "scheduling airtime" facility allows you to schedule predetermined pinless airtime.
How it works:
1. The Corporate customer requests a recharge. Radiospoor loads the recharges requested into its system.
2. Radiospoor in turn then sends a valid Electronic Recharge Request via a Web interface to ISAS. An hourly batch job submits the recharge requests to Recharge services.
3. The Vodago Customer`s IN account is updated. The Recharge Service updates the IN account a maximum of one hour after receiving the request.
4. The IN confirmation file is processed into ISAS.
5. ISAS loads the Recharge Confirmation file once a day of all recharges for the previous day.
6. VoBill processes the recharge information once a day, approximately one hour after ISAS processes the confirmations.
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