ACCOUNTS FOR TOLL CALLS

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30121, 3 May 1963, Page 13

ACCOUNTS FOR TOLL CALLS

Period Thought Too Long

Toll accounts should be sent to telephone users more frequently than the present two-monthly account, said Mr B. J. Drake when the council of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce met last evening.

The two-monthly account was all right if such accounts were part of the overhead, as it was in big business, he said. But for professional accounts, where the' accounts were charged to the individual client, it was something annoying not to receive accounts till two months after the calls had been put through. When one telephoned for details of an account-, it could not be found by the Post Office because it had been sent somewhere else to be typed. This was undesirable. The Chief Postmaster (Mr C. J. C. Simpson), replying to Mr Drake, said it was unfair to compare small businesses with businesses of the magnitude of the Post Office. The Post Office in the South Island alone handled 20m toll-call transactions in a year. It had found the twomonthly accounting system very convenient. To obtain details of charges was only a matter of organisation within the firms themselves. An office girl coming in in the morning could ring the tolls department and find out immediately the costs of toll calls made by the firm the previous day.