PSA Impact – Episode Three

Welcome to PSA Impact, your podcast for all things PSA, RMM, and MSP, with your hosts Rae Ann Buccianico and Chris Tim. Learn how to get the most out of your PSA tool and manage your business by maximizing profitability and increasing efficiency within your MSP business. Let's listen in. Hi and welcome everybody to the PSA Impact podcast with your hosts Rae Ann and Chris. We are a PSA independent series with a corresponding YouTube channel to help MSPs worldwide on all things PSA.

You can get your questions answered by myself and Rae Ann and learn how to get the best out of your PSA tool and manage your business by maximizing profitability and increasing efficiency within your MSP. We'll have a phone in where folks can call us up with their questions or problems and we will attempt to answer them. You can also get in touch with us via our Facebook and LinkedIn groups and also on Twitter. We'll put a link to all of these into the show notes. So with me today I have my co-host Rae Ann.

Hello everybody, I'm Rae Ann Buccianico, ABC Solutions in Clearwater, Florida and... I am Chris from Sundela Consulting in the UK. So Rae Ann, today we were going to talk a little bit about what is a PSA tool, why should I be using a PSA tool in my business and kind of what the difference between the PSA tools are, how they differ and how would somebody go about choosing one. So this is a really great topic, one of my favorite topics again. So what I want to do is just get your take on this and just get an idea from you of what is a PSA tool and why should a business use one.

You know Chris, I was just at one of the ASCII Summit success summits and somebody actually came up to me as I was mentioning PSA, you know, you're using your PSA in your business or in your MSP and somebody came up and said, what is a PSA, what does this even mean? And so I explained of course that it stands for Professional Services Automation which told him exactly nothing and he said, well that sounds like it could be anything that works in any business and I said, and it is. But PSA is the term that we use in MSP land, you know, to talk about how to run your IT business. And there's so many of them out there. And when I asked you this question earlier, you came up with this really great explanation of what a PSA is.

Could you just repeat that for me because it was just fabulous the way you worded it. Absolutely. It's a shame we weren't recording at that time because now I have to remember what I said. But no, really to me it's a business management platform and it's a tool that's designed to run your entire business from start to finish. So it's going to capture all of your sales, it's going to capture all of your leads, it's going to capture all of your opportunities, allow you to manage those opportunities.

You're then going to be able to carry all of those opportunities and customers and what have you all the way through to service delivery and manage those clients all the way through the entire lifecycle of that client right up to billing. So really when you think about it, it's kind of like a mini ERP system. So for those people who are wondering what it is and why they should be using it in their business, it's a tool that's designed to manage almost every aspect of your entire business right the way through from when you go out to an event or a trade show and you go and meet a customer for the first time or meet a prospect for the first time, how do you start the journey with that customer? You put them into your CRM, you then manage that opportunity, quotes, all that kind of good stuff, and then manage the entire lifecycle of that customer all the way through right the way through to billing that customer. So really, that's what it is in my opinion, right, is a business management platform.

I couldn't agree more with that because I've been using my PSA for probably 10 to 12 years now and I almost couldn't imagine life without it. It handles my invoicing, I can track all of my contracts, I set up all of the profitability information inside the PSA and I can pull just about any report that I want to see what's going on inside my business, going on inside one particular customer. We all have those very loud customers that are demanding of so much of our time and we want to make sure that we're at least being compensated and profitable. If we're going to spend 40% of our time answering their tickets, answering their calls and servicing this account, we at least want to make sure that we're making money on it. And I don't know that I would have been able to do that without my PSA in place.

Prior to that, I was using QuickBooks Desktop for timesheet tracking and so we would pick up the customer name and we would enter in the time and sure, that got me to a paycheck and that got me to a P&L, but it never really got me to how is this customer doing, how am I doing with this customer, is this customer making me money or costing me money? And I think that's what the PSA is really one of the biggest benefits that I get out of it. There are so many others. Like you said, tracking the opportunities, tracking the entire sales funnel from initial contact to offboarding the client 10 years from now after you've serviced them and you've decided to part ways. So there's plenty of PSAs out there to choose from.

There's no shortage of them, right? Every RMM tool has a PSA that goes with it by now. I know that there's some of the big ones, right? There's Autotask, there's ConnectWise, those are the two big ones out there, but Kaseya now has their own PSA and SolarWinds now has their own PSA. Then there's the smaller ones, right, RepairShopper, Atera.

There was a couple that I'm not familiar with on your list, Chris. Who are those? Yeah, so Rae-Ann, so just kind of going back a little bit to what you said about not being able to run your business with it, I was actually taking some notes while you were saying that and I fully agree, I'm no longer running an MSP business, I run a consulting business and even in my consulting business, I don't think I'd be able to run my business effectively and efficiently without using a PSA tool because it allows me to track every single thing that I do with that customer. So the entire, like I said, the entire opportunity, the sales funnel, every conversation that I have with the customer, everything I do with that customer, as well as every onsite engagement that I have with that customer, I actually log those as tickets and I track all of those as tickets or as a project if it's a longer term consulting engagement with that customer and I track every single thing all the way through on my PSA tool and I then actually send that into billing. I happen to use Xero and I use some third party integration that allows me to send that through to Xero.

So I fully agree with you on that. I think I certainly wouldn't be able to run my business today without using a PSA tool. And like you said, there are so many of them. You've mentioned some of the bigger names. You've mentioned there's Autotask, there's Connectwise, Atera, some of those others and I think some of them that maybe people haven't heard, some of the smaller guys, but that are making a huge impact in this industry is people like Harmony.

Harmony is one of those PSA tools I just love. They're doing so many things different to other PSA tools. Then you've also got things like Computecate and RepairShopper, so there's so many different variations out there of PSA tools and how does an MSP or a customer decide on which one of those to use? That's a very interesting question about how they would make that decision and it would be really good actually, Rayane, to get your take on that, on how would you advise somebody to make a decision on what PSA tool to use? So in my consulting business, I get this question all the time, right?

We want to switch PSAs or we want to get our first PSA and we have no idea which one to get. Which one should we get? And, of course, I have my favorites, but what I like doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be good for your business. So there's a number of different things that you want to pay attention to when you're shopping for a PSA. And, of course, price is always a consideration and many of the PSAs are comparatively priced.

Some of the smaller ones are a lot cheaper and you can get away with it. However, will it make sense in your business? You want to make sure that you know exactly what features you need and what features you can live without. And so you start to take a look at them and make your list of features. These are must-haves.

I have three things on my list. We have a must-have list, we have would-be-nice-if list, and in my perfect world list, you know, those things that you think might not be available in a PSA at your price level, but they might be. So make sure that you have even in your perfect world list ready, you know, just as ready as the must-haves. But the must-haves are, you know, these are deal breakers. You know, you need to have contracts.

If your PSA doesn't offer some form of contracts or agreements, you know, in order to track your recurring services and your managed services, if it doesn't offer that and you need it, then that PSA is not going to be for you. I think there's a lot of other things. Do you need to track the sales funnel? Is there a sales thing in there or do you have to pay for an additional module, you know, in order to track sales and opportunities and that sort of thing? So, you know, those are usually the areas that I start with when somebody's asking me what kind of PSA or which of these PSAs should I go with?

There's no right or wrong answer here. It's what features can you live with and which features can you live without. Absolutely, Rae-Ann, and you know what, I'd actually be interested to compare your kind of-your must-have lists with my must-have lists and, you know, compare notes, because I'm exactly the same. When people ask me that question is, what PSA should I choose, because there's hundreds of them out there, my answer to that is pretty much exactly what you've said, is, you know, think about what do you want for your business? What do you actually want it to do?

Don't just buy a PSA tool because everyone else is buying it, and I find that that happens quite a lot in this industry. You know, a lot of people will buy a particular PSA tool because everyone else is using it, and it doesn't necessarily mean that if everyone else is using it, that it's right for your business. So you've got to look at, you know, what do I need to do? What are the really, really important things, the must-haves, as you mentioned on that list? You know, and my PSA tool that I buy has to allow me to do those, and it also has to allow me to do those really quickly and efficiently as well.

You know, it shouldn't be something that, you know, that takes me a long time to manage any of those processes, because if it's going to take me a long time to manage that process, then I might as well not have a PSA to do that. So it's really depending on what it is that you're looking for in your business. You know, and I think another thing I hear of all the time, questions, and this might be actually something for another PSA topic, but, you know, is people ask me all the time about, you know, whether to go hosted or on-prem. And again, that is really based upon what is it that you're looking for in your business. You know, I speak to some people, even today, that still, you know, specifically want an on-prem solution that they can host themselves, you know, for a myriad of reasons, security, all kinds of stuff.

They want to have, you know, full control over the database. They want to be able to report off that database. You know, so those are also some things to take into consideration is, do I want a hosted cloud-based SaaS solution? Do I want an on-prem solution that I can run and manage myself? All of those sorts of things, but I really think it also means going to every single one of the PSA vendors and asking them for a demo, you know, and then, you know, making your decision based on that.

Some of them have really great interfaces. Some of them, you know, have average interfaces. You know, some of them control contracts and agreements better than others, you know, and I think it's, you need to basically look at every single one of those PSAs out there and then really make that informed decision based on what is going to work best for your business and what is right for what you're trying to do within your own business. I think you're so right about that. Everybody buys something because everybody else is using it, you know, or like, for instance, you might find some peer groups out there.

Maybe peer groups is another topic we talk about, but you find some peer groups out there that they won't even let you in the peer group unless you're using all of their entire tool stack. And I think that's really short-sighted because, you know, not every MSP is going to have the same exact business model that they can fit into the same chart of accounts with the same tool stack and all of that. So you don't want to just get out there and, you know, buy what everybody else is using. This is literally a monthly topic on the MSP sub in Reddit. So if you go into Reddit or if you ever frequent Reddit, you'll see this question time and time again.

I think people even get tired of seeing the question pop up, you know, because some new MSP just found the Reddit sub and says, hey, we're looking at MSPs or, I'm sorry, we're looking at our PSAs and we're considering making a switch. And so the topic starts all over again. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, it's the same as I think it's really the same with any software, right?

If your customer comes to you as an MSP and says, what's the best software for me to use in my business or even the best piece of hardware, you know, switch or router, whatever it is, you know, as an MSP, you're going to look at what fits best with your customer's environment, what fits best with their business, and you're going to give them a solution that fits best with that. And it's exactly the same in a PSA tool. Look at the PSA tool. Look at all the options out there and make the decision based on what it is that you're looking to do. You know, and you mentioned earlier on, Ryan, about almost every one of the big PSA vendors has an RMM tool.

So, you know, I look at that and I say, well, think about the RMM tool. You know, if you really like the RMM tool from one vendor, it might be a good idea to kind of stick with the same PSA tool that that vendor has, but it's not a necessity, you know. But actually, the RMM tool that I'm using, I really like that RMM tool, but I don't like the PSA vendor that owns that RMM tool, for example, I don't like their tool. So find out then whether the RMM tool that you really want to use integrates nicely and seamlessly with the PSA tool that you're interested in and buy them both. You know, and I think a lot of people make that mistake by kind of picking the same RMM tool with the same vendor.

And whilst that's a great idea to do in most cases, it isn't always the way that I would recommend that people always do that. Yeah, I would agree with that. And also, you know, most of the RMM tools play nicely with all of the different PSAs. So you really, for years, I was using one RMM tool in a different PSA. I eventually stopped using that RMM tool and what was it different, but they all integrate pretty well with each other.

You know, no vendor wants to cut themselves off and says, I don't want to sell you my RMM tool simply because you're not using my PSA. You know, so they've all worked pretty hard, I think, to have seamless integrations straight across the board in all of the different PSAs. So, you know, maybe some of the smaller ones, you know, might not have as many integrations, but they may. So it doesn't hurt to ask and certainly ask for a demo if you want to see how it works, how the tickets flow in, how easy they are to manage after they flow in from the RMM tool, setting them into queues and, you know, setting up your workflows and all of that based on the tickets that come in. But most of them integrate pretty well, at least in my experience.

Exactly, Rianne. And, you know, you mentioned about the smaller ones and the RMM tool integration. And, you know what, I mean, actually, that would be something that I think is, you know, if I was starting an MSP business again, you know, I would probably start to look at some of the smaller guys because they're not tied into any other product. So they actually integrate, in my opinion, sometimes better than some of the actual bigger vendors with all the tools out there, you know, because they're not tied into any specific RMM tool or any other tool. They just kind of go, you know what, we're open.

We're quite happy for anybody to integrate with us. You know, certainly companies like Harmony has a huge list of integrations of RMM tools that they integrate with, you know, along with Communicate. You know, they all have these built into their product. But one of the nice things about using somebody like them is they're not pushing you down the route of a specific RMM tool because they want you to buy that because it's part of their same business. So, you know, I really think that's why there's a huge amount of value in looking at some of the smaller guys as well.

You know, and you mentioned about as part of this integration as well, there's many ways that, you know, RMM tools or any other tool for that matter can integrate with it. You know, all of the PSA tools that I know have really good APIs. So it's really easy to develop those integrations. But pretty much all of them also have, you know, incoming ticket processing facility. So, you know, if you've got an email that you can send in, you can create a ticket.

So any alerts that get generated through that RMM tool will create a ticket, you know, when an alert is triggered in that RMM tool. So there's really no reason to necessarily stick with, you know, with a PSA tool that is designed from a specific vendor and only use their PSA tool. Obviously, there's lots of benefits to doing that. But I think in making that decision, don't base your decision just on the fact that you're using the PSA tool, therefore you have to use the RMM tool from that same vendor. Well, that's true.

You know, I just want to kind of shout out to those that do use the same vendor for their RMM and their PSA. You may find that those integrations are, you know, are especially robust so that it will recognize the contract. It will recognize the asset that is creating the alert ticket. And you can, you know, sometimes seamlessly drill right down to where the problem is right from the ticket that came in from the RMM. So there are some good reasons to use the same vendor.

But like you said, it should not be the deal breaker. You know, because take a look at some of those smaller ones. If you can get away with the smaller, cheaper PSA in your business while you are growing and really, you know, getting your feet wet into the MSP business, or some of these people have been using, you know, Repair Shopper and Atera and some of the others for years and years and are quite happy with it. And I know that there's a long list of other PSAs out there that we did not mention here. And I, their names are escaping me, but I know that they're out there.

Wow, Rae-Ann, this is an amazing topic to talk about. I mean, it's, you know, definitely one of my favorite things to talk to people about, you know, RMM tools, PSA tools, which tools should I use. You know, and I definitely think that there's some legs in this. And I definitely think this is a great topic for us to do as another podcast. So, you know, shout out to all the listeners.

If people want us to kind of go into a lot more detail on all the PSA tools that are out there, you know, talk about the benefits, you know, let us know. Reach out to us on any of the social networks. We'll put, you know, the links in the show notes to all of those. And let us know, right? Talk to us about what it is that you want us to talk to you guys about on these PSA tools, you know, and how we can continue this discussion, you know, perhaps in some other podcasts.

And I love it that you say that this is one of your favorite topics because you say that all the time. So, every topic is Chris's favorite topic. And so, please, join us again next time so where we can talk about another one of Chris's favorite topics on PSAimpact.net. So, Ryan, obviously, PSA is my favorite topic. That's why I always say everything's favorite.

I love everything about PSA tools. So, you know, as we've said many times, feel free to reach out to us on all of the socials. You know, there are links to that in the show notes. So, Ryan, thank you very much for your time. And we'll see everybody next time.

So, your PSA is the key to your MSP success. And remember, go out and make an impact on your world today. Thank you for joining us today on PSA Impact. We hope you've learned something and that you'll join us next time when we answer new questions posed by our listeners.