# Usage reporting

Learn about the usage reporting for on-prem deployments

For on-prem deployments, usage reporting is required for accurate billing. There are two types of usage reporting we offer: **automatic** and **offline**.

#### [Automatic](/deployments/usage-reporting/automatic.md)

[Learn more about automatic usage reporting](/deployments/usage-reporting/automatic.md)

#### [Offline](/deployments/usage-reporting/offline.md)

[Learn how to set up offline usage reporting using a usage container](/deployments/usage-reporting/offline.md)

## How the reporting mode is configured[​](#how-the-reporting-mode-is-configured "Direct link to How the reporting mode is configured")

Both modes are controlled by the same two settings. `SM_EATS_URL` sets the destination for usage events. `SM_ENABLE_USAGE_REPORTING` sets whether the transcriber restricts events to the subset needed for billing (`true`, the default) or sends the full activity event stream (`false`).

If `SM_EATS_URL` is not set, the destination depends on `SM_ENABLE_USAGE_REPORTING`: at its default of `true`, the transcriber falls back to `usage.speechmatics.com`; set to `false`, there is no destination and reporting is disabled entirely.

Automatic reporting relies on the default destination, with `SM_ENABLE_USAGE_REPORTING` left at its default of `true`. Offline reporting sets `SM_EATS_URL` to your own [Usage Container](/deployments/usage-reporting/offline.md#container) instead, while `SM_ENABLE_USAGE_REPORTING` remains at its default — the same billing events are sent to your container rather than to Speechmatics.

## What data do we record?[​](#what-data-do-we-record "Direct link to What data do we record?")

We will **never** send customer audio data over the network. We only record metadata about what our transcriber is doing.

We aim to be completely transparent about the kind of data we record. In future releases, we may improve our service by recording additional technical data in relation to the operation of the transcriber. This will not include sensitive customer data, such as audio files or transcripts.

### Data we record:[​](#data-we-record "Direct link to Data we record:")

* Audio duration information to accurately calculate billing
* Customer information including: Contract ID, Customer name and License ID
* Summary of job configuration information, excluding any potentially sensitive information such as Custom Dictionary content
* Audio information such as codec and format type
* System information, including certain error events

We record events about what the transcriber is doing as small JSON objects. Here is an example of the kind of data we send:

```
{
  "container_id": "aee112010359",
  "contract_id": "0",
  "customer_id": "Speechmatics",
  "engine_instance_id": "930ab901-c408-457d-9f6d-dee21ecaac7f",
  "event": "TRANSCRIBER_DONE",
  "event_specific_data": {
    "bit_rate": "512000",
    "build_id": "",
    "channels": 2,
    "codec_name": "pcm_s16le",
    "file_metadata": {},
    "format_name": "wav",
    "inference": "cpu",
    "job_config": {
      "transcription_config": {
        "language": "en"
      },
      "type": "transcription"
    },
    "license_id": "b6616911c59c40cbbb32ebf442696a14",
    "rtf": 1.975401759147644,
    "sample_rate": "16000",
    "total_received_bytes": 149562,
    "total_received_duration": 2,
    "total_speech_duration": 2
  },
  "session_id": "a29bd398-5745-43ca-9d16-07cdc6eabdd0",
  "source": "uniasr-batch",
  "time_stamp": "2022-09-14T13:01:13.239Z"
}
```