Call Detail Reporting: What the Records Show

A phone line without call detail reporting is a curiosity: you know calls happen, and nothing else. Call detail reporting closes that gap — one record per call, grouped into the patterns that drive staffing, budgeting and campaign decisions. This page covers what the records contain, how to read them, and where the raw data lives for teams that want it programmatically.

What a call detail record contains

Each call that reaches your number produces one record: the number dialled, the arrival time, the duration, and the answered or missed outcome. Individually the records are administrative; grouped, they become the views that answer real questions — calls per number over time, peak hours, missed-call clusters, durations against staffing. The reporting framework is set out in 1300 and 1800 number reporting.

Reading the reports for decisions

Four views cover most of the value:

1. Volume by hour. When calls actually arrive, versus when you assumed they do — the staffing decision.
2. Answered against missed. The leakage view: how many callers gave up, and at what times — the overflow decision, per the routing discipline in how 1300 numbers work.
3. Per-number comparison. With a tracking number per campaign, calls per number is the attribution view — which medium made the phone ring.
4. Duration against billing. Per-second call charges reconcile exactly against the records, so the invoice is checkable — the cost-control view.

The raw layer: CDRs via API

Teams that want the data in their own systems read the same records programmatically: the CDR area of our API returns call detail records within roughly one to two minutes of each call completing, in JSON over REST with bearer-token authentication. The integration patterns — nightly pulls, anomaly alerting, joins with your own data — are mapped in call analytics through the API.

Getting the reporting, and the line behind it

Call detail reporting rides on the number'"'"'s plan: standard 1300 and 1800 numbers from $10 a month, searchable on available numbers, with rates on the pricing page. Choose the number, set the routing, and the records start accumulating from the first call — the report is the habit, not the setup.