November 2009

A Mini Case Study: How Taxes can [Wrongfully] Cost You Thousands Every Year.

Did you know that inaccurate tax rates could increase your telecom spend by thousands of dollars each year?

Well hold on to your turkey dinner, we just helped a Telecom Management customer reduce their telecom taxes by 55% for one location! After analyzing their bills, we discovered that their high tax rate was tied to an outdated service type (PBX trunks) that fell under an old, expensive tariff.

Our solution?

We converted the outdated lines to business lines, which are different in name only, reducing the effective tax rate from 65% to 10%! This simple change now helps our customer save thousands of dollars every year.

Lesson: Always scrutinize your tax rates. Whether you fall under outdated tariffs or you are being double taxed (click here to read our tip on avoiding double taxation), you can save your company thousands of dollars by ensuring you are taxed properly.

Want to find out more about saving money on telecom tax rates or Telecom Management? Let us know.

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3 Reasons Why a Telecom Cheat Sheet Saves You Time and Confusion.

A Telecom Cheat Sheet that contains critical information like your account numbers, circuit numbers, what lines you have, and primary contact numbers dramatically reduces hassles and headaches when communicating with your carriers. Here’s why:

1. Some carriers won’t or can’t help you unless you give them specific account information.
2. The information carriers need to assist you often isn’t disclosed to the end user.
3. You can pass on the cheat sheet to other employees should you take off early for Thanksgiving.

Being prepared is important, and creating a Telecom Cheat Sheet is a great way to have all the information you need when you need it. It will save you from the dreadful situation of, “they keep asking me for numbers… and I have no idea what they are or how to find them.”

If you need help creating a Telecom Cheat Sheet, please let us know.

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Make Your Company More Effective, Innovative, and Competitive.

“You’ll love how easy it is to get more from your teams and bring your projects in on time and on budget.”

@task, the web-based project and portfolio management (PPM) solution from AtTask, Inc., focuses your knowledge workers on those activities that make them and your company more effective, innovative, and competitive. With dynamic Management, Collaboration, and Integration tools, @task helps you get work done efficiently by allowing you to better manage your data, generate custom reports, assign teams and tasks, and create interactive user and project schedules.

We started using @task almost a year ago and joined great local companies like Amazon.com, Boeing, and Windermere Real Estate, as well as other industry firms like Cisco and Time Warner in utilizing the PPM solution to successfully complete projects for customers.

Today, we rely on @task to collaborate effectively as a team when tracking and completing our Cost Reduction, Service Procurement, and Telecom Management services. @task helps us make sure that we keep our deadlines and meet our commitments to our customers.

If you want to learn more about how @task can streamline your project management and help you deliver on-time to your clients contact AtTask’s Pacific NW Sales Representative, Peter Casale at 801.734.6366 or peter.casale@attask.com.

Special Note – We will be presenting along with Crane Electronics and Physio Control at the upcoming Washington @task User Conference on December 9th!

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Featured Employee – Annie Cheng

Annie Cheng is Netstar’s resident marketing guru, better known as our Marketing Director. With a business degree from UW (a Husky fan for life!) and prior experience working in marketing and sales with CW11 TV and Nordstrom, Annie uses her strong background to lead Netstar’s Service Development, Strategic Marketing, and PR efforts (check out Annie’s successful pitches to many mainstream media outlets here). Moreover, experience in our company’s support and sales departments helps Annie create initiatives and improvements that focus on delivering maximum value to Netstar’s customers.

Outside of the office, Annie works with UW’s BEDC (Business and Economic Development Center) as an alumni advisor. Just last month, she helped judge the BEDC’s 2009 BEDC Diversity in Business Case Competition.

Annie’s latest accomplishment is her adoption of the new office fish: Dexter. She hopes that “Dex” will help Netstar achieve new levels of productivity!

Justin Tsang
Marketing Assistant
Netstar, Inc.

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