Professional services automation, aka PSA, is a business software that helps businesses who provide managed services to clients. One such example of businesses that can benefit from PSA software are MSPs.

The core function of PSA software is to enable businesses in the services industry to efficiently run their business. It provides organizations with the tools required to manage all the stakeholders engaged in the delivery of a project. However, modern PSA software has larger capabilities, which include service desk, CRM, project management, finance and billing, and time and expense tracking.

What are the benefits of employing PSA software?

PSA software can bring several benefits for businesses, particularly MSPs, because of the nature of their business. MSPs generally manage customers that have varied requirements and can be responsible for a broad set of IT services. Smaller MSPs still have to manage the administrative side of the business in addition to supporting their customers. Investing in the right PSA software can help MSPs compete in an expanding market by allowing them to focus on serving their customers to deliver increased efficiency, more cost-efficiently.

Here are some of the ways your business can benefit from implementing PSA software:

• Reduce costs: There's no doubt that revenue must be a top priority for your MSP, especially if you're using separate applications for billing, help desk and project management, then a PSA software can be a one-stop solution that can help you improve cost-efficiency and maximize profitability. When your business grows and you serve more clients, you can also significantly reduce the administrative workload without having to increase your administrative headcount, allowing your business to expand easily.
• Automation: PSA software also helps MSPs meet service level agreements by automating various working functions. As your MSP grows, you cannot depend on manual processes to track customer tickets anymore — at least, not without error. PSA software enables you to automate an array of tasks. This allows your organization to increase its efficiency and perform at scale while reducing resource costs. Earlier, businesses had to manually maintain data that was required for various administrative functions, such as invoicing, financial reporting and analysis, on error-prone spreadsheets. However, with PSA software, organizations can automate administrative functions such as customer support ticket creation, project management, resource management and invoicing. In addition to that, PSA software can also automatically record time spent on specific projects, customers, etc, to ensure accurate invoicing. This boosts efficiency and customer satisfaction while making scalability predictable.
• Metrics that matter: As an MSP, you need to track important customer data to create reports that can help improve profitability. PSA software allows your MSP to easily maintain a record of the hours spent working on each project/customer. This data can help you establish data-backed processes. For instance, some PSAs automatically record time spent on specific projects or customers to give you the data you need to revise quotes based on the hours required to complete a project.
• Reduce errors: Using multiple tools for various aspects of your business operations, such as project management, accounting, support, etc, makes room for error which leads to reduced efficiency.
• Improves overall customer satisfaction: With PSA software, your internal teams can collaborate closely with your customers throughout the lifecycle of a ticket. As your MSP grows, you cannot depend on manual processes to track customer tickets anymore — at least, not without error. With PSA software, however, you can standardize operations with one central dashboard for all your client data. This can in turn improve the overall efficiency of your business as your MSPs scales to the next level. As a result, your MSP can improve service delivery, which leads to increased customer satisfaction.

What are the features you must look for in PSA software?

PSA software's goal is to enable businesses to spend more time on business growth and less time and resources on administrative work. These are some of the features you must look for when choosing the right PSA software:

• Service desk: Besides helping MSPs manage customer service operations, PSA software is equipped with a help desk and ticketing solution to allow you to respond quickly and professionally to users. Furthermore, when your PSA solution is fully integrated with RMM, it allows your team to manage tickets almost instantly without switching applications.
• CRM: A CRM solution can have a lot of redundant fields for service-based businesses such as MSPs. However, looking for PSA software that has its own integrated CRM system can benefit you by giving you information on exactly what you need to focus on in order to keep your customers happy and to maximize opportunities.
• Project management: PSA software will give you real-time insight into live projects at the click of a button. You will be able to track resource utilization, project plans and tasks from a single dashboard. In addition PSA software will give you a birds-eye view of all your projects and highlight any issues that are looming.
• Finance and invoicing: The role of PSA software is to reduce time and resources spent on performing administrative tasks. PSA software will enable you to reduce time spent on accounting and invoicing by automatically creating and posting invoices from timesheets and expense reports. With the right PSA software, you can track customers and suppliers in the PSA dashboard and export invoices into your accounting software with a list of services, products and expense types.
• Tracking: PSA software gives you timely, precise, real-time data and segregates expenses by company, project and employee. In addition, an automatic timer feature can record the time spent on a ticket and pause and resume as and when a ticket is closed or reopened. This enables accurate tracking, reporting and billing.

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