***This blog piece is from one of ConnectBooster’s newest contributors to our monthly blog, Josh Peterson. Check out Josh’s bio below.***
My company has been doing ConnectWise consulting for about 11 years.
In that time, we’ve seen dozens of good tricks. And I mean dozens of them. Really good ones that you won’t find published anywhere online.
In my consulting practice that I’ve had the privilege to be a founder of, we’re big fans of sharing.
So I want to share my top 5 time-saving factors an MSP can use to automate their PSA software. These are really good tricks, direct from our clients and our colleagues, on the best ways to utilize ConnectWise.
#1 Map your default agreements
When setting up agreements in ConnectWise, you want to make sure that document is the default on any new service tickets created for a company. This will prevent billing mistakes with your technicians.
When technicians go to enter their time on a service ticket for a client, they’re not thinking about what agreement should be applied, and the service manager or dispatcher may be too busy to do an accurate time check. If that ticket hits the bookkeeper’s desk and they start running that invoice with incorrect information, they will have to go back later and change everything.
If you make it part of your workflow when creating a new company to attach the proper agreement, it just hid a seamless manual task and automated a task that normally takes up your precious time.
#2 Workflow annual increases
Nobody likes forgetting to up your annual increases for clients.
It’s a loss of profit when you do, and you should be increasing your profit gains every single year.
Your clients do not want to be reminded about price increases, and you can’t count on them to bring it up. Create a workflow rule that alerts you via an email and activity that an agreement anniversary date is coming up in the next thirty days. That gives you plenty of time to go in and add that two and a half percent increase. You can even use a pre-formatted email with language giving you that nudge to increase a client’s Agreement. You put it in the contract or talk to a customer about it, just that little reminder to do it.
It may seem simple, but remember you could be missing out on a 1-2% automatic profit increase on each of the clients you serve without it.
#3 Minimize your work roles and work types
You never want to put yourself in the position where you’re making custom work roles and types for every single client.
You don’t want to start making work roles based on individual deals you negotiate with people. Keep your core work roles, and customize those at the point of assigning them to that individual customer.
Keep your work types to a minimum and fairly generic, and customize at the company level, not the setup table. The more options you give technicians and dispatchers, the more likely they are to select the wrong one.
Let them be expert technicians, not expert admins.
#4 Invest time upfront in invoicing email templates
We want to spend the time up front in different invoicing email templates.
Make sure, especially when starting to use the ConnectBooster payment automation tool, that you have an email message templated. Something like “thank you for your payment, your credit card on file will be charged.”
You don’t want a template that’s confusing or vague. Instead of using the generic message from ConnectWise, customize the process using a variety of email templates with clear and detailed language.
Avoid any excuse for your customers to delay payments. Your bookkeeper’s job will be much easier if the messaging is clear and concise right from the beginning.
#5 Build out your Charge Codes to avoid redundant tickets
Many MSP’s create internal service tickets. They have the weekly company meeting service ticket, or internal support services as a ticket. This leads to endless clutter on your service board and doesn’t reflect how long each department is spending on internal work.
You want to minimize the internal tickets by using Charge Codes. There are two reasons for this:
1). The process keeps service boards clear and makes the job much easier for the dispatcher. Charge Codes eliminate all the tickets they would need to keep track of for internal activities.
2). Owners or business managers can see exactly how many hours are on each Charge Code on their financial dashboards, eliminating the need to run multiple reports.
Charge Codes allow leaders to see exactly how much time is spent on each activity, and let them know what can be cut down on.
Final thoughts
It’s critical to implement these automation steps to get the most value out of your PSA.
If you don’t set the tools up correctly, and use all the functions properly, you might as well not have them at all. You might as well just use yellow legal pads and keep life confusing. It’s worth the time to get your PSA properly configured and save tens of thousands of dollars each year, and remove all the frustration and headaches. Once you have your PSA software set up for success, schedule a demo of ConnectBooster and see how we manage invoicing all of our clients.
About Josh Peterson
Josh Peterson is the founder and CEO of Bering McKinley. With over 15 years of management consulting experience in the industry, Josh has worked with 1000’s of IT firms. Josh loves taking companies over that Million Dollar mark and beyond. Since IT firms are the only focus, Bering McKinley is the go-to expert for all things Financial, Sales, and Service Delivery.
The Bering McKinley team serves the community through direct one on one consulting, workshops, and Peer Teams. Bering McKinley is also the oldest running ConnectWise consulting firm serving their users for over ten years.
Beyond consulting, Josh loves playing poker and recently played in his first WSOP event. He recently completed (ran would be an exaggeration) his first NYC Marathon and is currently learning how to fly airplanes.
