What is call accounting?
At its simplest, a call accounting system stores information about telephone calls from your
phone system so a person — or another computer — can analyse them later.
You may also see it called call analytics, call logging
or call reporting. Same idea, different vendor vocabulary.
PABX / PBX
A typical business phone system with more than one extension is a PBX
(Private Branch Exchange) — sometimes PABX (Private Automated
Branch Exchange). It connects your phone lines to the handsets in the office.
Extensions aren't only handsets used by people. They include auto-attendants, hunt and
ring groups, voicemail, fax machines and other devices.
CDR / SMDR
As calls happen, the PBX emits records on its SMDR
(Station Message Detail Recording) or CDR (Call Detail Record) port. A
legacy port might be a 9600 baud serial connection; modern PBXs usually offer a
network connection instead.
Each record typically tells you when the call started, the number dialed, the duration of the call,
the extension that handled it, and which line it used. A sample might look like:
Extension Trunk Start time Duration Ring Dialed Type Account
--------- ----- ---------------- -------- ----- ------- -------- -------
1000 001 2026-05-17 13:12 00:01:42 00:17 Incoming
1001 001 2026-05-17 13:19 00:02:17 5551234 Outgoing L1466
1010 002 2026-05-17 13:40 01:42:04 00:42 Incoming
1002 001 2026-05-17 13:44 00:02:42 00:07 Incoming
1001 001 2026-05-17 14:10 00:04:42 5551235 Outgoing L1475
Or — from a different vendor, the same calls on the same day — it might look like this:
Date Time Ext CO Dialed Number Ring Duration Cost
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
17/05/26 01:12PM 100 0001 <I>0895554338 0'17 00:01:42 $0000.0
17/05/26 01:19PM 101 0001 5551234 00:02'17
17/05/26 01:40PM 110 0002 <I>0895554338 0'42 01:42:04 $0000.0
17/05/26 01:44PM 102 0001 <I>0895551234 0'07 00:02:42 $0000.0
17/05/26 02:10PM 101 0001 5551235 00:04'42
Nearly every manufacturer does this differently. Different column order, different date
formats, optional fields — even two models from the same PBX family can disagree.
Parsing SMDR cleanly is an important part of the job.
VoIP & hosted PBXs
VoIP (Voice over IP) and hosted PBXs now dominate the market. To users they look and
feel like classic phone systems; behind the scenes calls travel as internet traffic.
Most still produce SMDR-style records, sometimes with bonus fields like bytes
transferred. Others quietly drop useful information — abandoned-call data is a common
casualty. Some vendors seem to forget these things are still PBXs.
Connecting a PC to a PBX
Serial
Cheap, simple, and limited to a few tens of metres of cable. The collecting PC has
to live next to the PBX.
Network
IP-based collection means the PC — or the cloud collector — can sit anywhere on the
LAN, or anywhere on the internet.
Basic types of call accounting software
-
1
Desktop, while you're logged in
Runs only when a specific user is signed in. Log out, lose the call records.
-
2
Background service
Runs whenever the computer is on. Better — but still tied to a single machine.
-
3
Hosted / cloud collector
A tiny agent (or a small "black box") forwards encrypted call records to a hosted
platform. No local database to babysit. This is the TIM4biz approach.
Why use call accounting?
Recording calls is the easy part. The point is reporting — making (or saving) money:
Recharge call costs to cost centres or customers.
Right-size your trunk lines — pay for what you use.
Catch missed calls outside business hours.
Improve service: answer times, response times, transfer rates.
Detect misuse by staff or third parties.
Stop toll fraud before the bill arrives.
Protect employees by reporting malicious calls.
Measure productivity across teams and sites.
Meet legal & regulatory retention requirements.
Find the expensive calls: long-distance, mobile, premium, international.
Toll fraud — the $78,000 problem
Toll fraud is the unauthorised use of your phone system, usually from outside the business.
The average toll-fraud incident in Australia is estimated at
$78,000 AUD.
Attackers get into the PBX via a phone line or an internet connection, then dial out to
international and premium-rate numbers. Most businesses find out when the monthly invoice
lands.
A toll-fraud detection option in advanced call accounting alerts you as it happens —
not 30 days later.
Classic problems & the TIM4biz fix
The database keeps slowing down
Old way: cheap database, no maintenance tools, eventually you "fix" it by deleting old calls — and lose year-on-year reports.
TIM4biz: a hosted platform built for retention. Reports stay fast as the dataset grows.
The system is down — and nobody noticed
Old way: the box is in a cupboard, only opened once a month. By then a month of records is gone.
TIM4biz: always-on collectors, health monitoring, and alerting when records stop flowing.
The PBX stopped sending SMDR
Old way: silently broken until someone runs a report and the page is blank.
TIM4biz: we watch the feed, not just the database, so a quiet PBX raises a flag.
The PC is off, full, or logged out
Old way: Windows updates, full disks, power glitches — all silently fatal.
TIM4biz: small dedicated collector or VM, designed to run unattended for years.
Frequently asked
Is call accounting the same as call recording?
No. Call accounting describes the metadata (who, when, how long, where). Call recording captures the audio. TIM4biz can do both — they're complementary.
Does it work with Microsoft Teams or Zoom Phone?
Yes — both Teams Direct Routing and Zoom Phone CDRs are supported. See the PBX support list.
Do I need to run a Windows server in the cupboard?
No. A small agent or dedicated black box forwards encrypted records to the hosted platform. See Hardware & VM options.
Can I get the data out via API?
Yes. See the API documentation for the REST endpoints and export formats.
Ready to see it on your own data?
We'll plug into your PBX (or VoIP platform) and show you reports built from your real calls.