Understanding the Importance of Contracts in Autotask
So, you're using Autotask to manage your MSP…..right…? Awesome! Let's talk about contracts. They're like the backbone of your business, outlining what you're doing for your clients and how much it's gonna cost. I always tell clients, Contracts are the financial heartbeat of the system. I am always very surprised to find MSP’s not using the contract module. This means all their labor is going into Approve and Post and well.. either its being invoiced or its just sitting there. Not invoiced, not tracked and the management has very little idea of their true profitability.
Why are contracts important in Autotask?
Well, for starters, they help Autotask generate invoices. No more manual calculations or mistakes. Plus, they keep track of your projects and help you stay organized. And if you ever run into a billing dispute, a clear contract can be a lifesaver. Contracts provide a method to determine what is included and excluded from labor or service items. It provides a map of the relationship you have with your client and a guidepost to improving that relationship. From contracts, you can run many reports to give you insight into your margins and overall billing revenue. This can be used for both historic review and forecasting.
Some contract optimizations:
Create templates: Think of these as blueprints for your contracts. You can have different templates for different types of work and clients. You can copy these to new clients or existing clients to facilitate a more efficient onboarding process.
Set Common Expiration Dates (preferably end of calendar year): I like to set my expirations to be the last day of the calendar year, regardless of when the client started services. This helps make administration easier as you have to renew all contracts at once, instead of needing to track every contract individually. I also find year end is the most optimal time for renegotating or raising rates.
Link to projects: Flat rate contracts can be linked to projects setting up mile stones that are tied to phases or tasks. This automates your project billing on some level, making it much easier to track.
Set up billing: You can use all sorts of tools in the system to help create automations in the system to help facilitate billing. Integrated Customer Billing and Billing Rules create automation for per device or per user billing.
Tips for accurate billing:
Review contracts regularly: Make sure they're still up-to-date.
Track time and expenses: Use Autotask's tools to keep track of your hours and costs. This includes your service desk time.
Train your team: Make sure everyone knows how to use Autotask's contracts and default service contracts. Additionally, if you use many exclusions its vital your team knows which work types to use for tasks that might result in billable and non-billable charges.
That's it! This is some general advice, for a more in-depth look, lets have a free conversation to look at your contracts so we can figure out how improve your overall billing infrastructure.