Time tracking is one of those things that everyone is expected to know but few really talk about. I saw a discussion about this pop up on reddit this week and while the discussion hasn’t had a ton of interaction just yet, I thought it might be worth to take a closer look at the art of time tracking for IT and some basics on what you should be tracking and why. Billable Time vs Actual Time The first issue you’ll bump into is the difference between billable time and actual time. Billable time is the increments in which you bill to your client. Actual time is the time that your techs record that they actually worked on a ticket. Billable time shows up on invoices to clients, while actual time shows up on time cards in your accounting software. Even if you are a flat rate IT provider it…
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Meltdown – Look Before You Leap
UPDATE 1-12-2018 Two scripts were updated to new versions. They are linked in the original article below. Update to add link to this week’s patch blog. ~~~~ If you aren’t living under a rock I’m sure you have seen the recent news surrounding Intel and virtually every other CPU manufacturer in existence. The two security…
$10 / User IT Service? The MoviePass Argument
Earlier this week there was a huge announcement made by the company MoviePass. For those unfamiliar with the service, MoviePass offers all-you-can watch movie tickets (with a few stipulations) for one monthly price. It sounds mighty familiar to the MSP’s mantra of “All-you-can-eat” service contracts. However, at the beginning of the week, MoviePass did something…
Why Your Helpdesk Never Seems To Be Able To Catch Up (The Phoenix Project)
From where I come from in the world of consulting, you are either suffering from too much work or too little. As I have worked with MSPs over the last decade, I can say that the same is very true here in IT as well. We often blame our sales efforts for the issue of…
Kaseya Live Connect (KLC) doesn't work after upgrade
After a Kaseya server upgrade, (or often after any upgrade/patch), we get some tickets regarding the inability to access machines via KLC. If you experience this, follow the following steps, and it will generally solve your issue. Make sure the agent has upgraded to the latest version – The Kaseya servers now auto-update agents, however…
Opinion: What To Do With Your MSP When Your Life Falls Apart
The trials of personal life will ebb and flow over time. Most days are pretty normal, but occasionally it seems like the universe conspires against us in the worst ways possible. It could be the loss of a loved one, illness, relationship issues, injury, money problems, children problems, any number of personal events which can…
Giving clients remote access to their systems using Kaseya
Ever have a client that needed emergency or occasional remote access to their system? There really wasn’t much you could do, short of setting up an account for them with a commercial remote control vendor like GoToMyPC, TeamViewer, or LogMeIn. Kaseya has always had a feature that allowed you to grant access to a customer,…
Why Can't MSPs Ever Seem To Sell Cloud Services?
Cloud Services and Managed Services seem like they would be two products that work hand in hand to provide a killer experience to your clients. By coupling cloud and managed services you can cover your client end-to-end from email, document sharing, remote access, and more. More often, though, it seems that, at least from a…
Using Kaseya to Audit for MS17-10 to prevent WannaCrypt infection
Our Service Board and email lit up this weekend with partners asking if they are protected against the WannaCrypt ransomware attack that has made national headlines. First of all, it is important to know that the patch for this (MS17-10) was released back in MARCH, so this is not exactly a NEW vulnerability, but it…
Setting up a Review Gate to create social proof and authority for your MSP.
If you were to look at MSPs (or just small businesses as a whole) you would probably find most lack refinement in terms of customer follow-up, collecting testimonials, and spotting and resolving unhappy clients. It is very easy to move on to the next thing on your agenda at the end of a customer…
When to (NOT) Outsource Your Helpdesk
For those of you who don’t know, we worked as a channel partner with Live Virtual Helpdesk for several years in the past. They are a good helpdesk solution and we still forward partners to them when they’re considering outsourcing or augmenting their internal helpdesk. I still get calls even though we stopped directly offering…