Amtel Gives VARs Control Over TEM Platform

Amtel Inc. (Booth 419) announced that it will offer its agents and VARs the ability to manage their own clients that have subscribed to Amtel’s TIMS hosted telecom expense management (TEM) platform for wireline and wireless services.

TIMS previously was sold by VARs for a percentage of the monthly revenue. Amtel charges clients a fee based on the monthly spend that is managed through the TIMS platform.

With the introduction of Version 4.0, VARs have more direct control over their clients TEM processes and can perform some of the professional services, such as downloading invoices. TIMS accommodates many billing media, such as CD ROM, EDI, Web and, of course, paper.

“Now the VAR can make the application more sticky,” said PJ Gupta, Amtel’s founder and president. “When they start at the client side, all the new orders, all the incremental business goes to the VAR.”

Gupta explained the new access enables the VAR to receive commission from Amtel and to charge the client for professional services, like billing manipulation, cost allocation and geocode reports.

Agents access TIMS through a Web portal. They can see their clients under one log-in or have separate logins for each. Amtel charges the customer a small fee for the platform and the VAR bills for the other services. A majority (about 70 percent) of the fees paid by the customer would be for the professional services, Gupta estimates.