MSP Billable Hours: Is Your Profit Slipping Away?
Incredibly, most MSPs are wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, and they don't even know it! How? By not holding themselves accountable to hold their techs accountable.
The solution sounds easy enough:
1) Have the Techs complete their timesheets on time
2) Minimize the amount of Regular Time they are putting into their timesheets through things like including a bucket for Unknown/Wrap Up/Timesheet True-Up time
3) Regulate the amount of Company Time that is being assigned to the Team in general
4) Review all Non-Billable time for coding mistakes
With these four steps in place, it should be easy for the Techs to stay on task and focus on Customer requests. But alas, even after doing the hard work of clearing the decks for them, the hardest part is still in front of us – holding the Techs accountable to stop wasting Billable Hours.
Most MSPs are Wasting A LOT of Available Billable Hours, how do you compare?
Very few MSPs are not wasting any Available Billable Hours. Even fewer are asking the Techs to slow down & take breaks because they are overutilized and afraid they will burn out or leave. It is touted that the Industry average is 28 Available Hours per week per Tech, but our experience says the average is less than 20.
How do you stack up? Below are the steps to find out, and here is a video tutorial on how to do the steps:
Resource Utilization Data Gathering Tutorial
1) Run the Standard Autotask Resource Utilization Report for the last 3 months
a. Menu -> Reports -> Resources -> General -> Resource Utilization
b. Reporting Period is 90 days starting from the first day of the first month and ending on the last day of the last month
c. Select the Techs
d. Uncheck all checkboxes except "Total Client Hours Worked" and "Total client Percent Utilized."
e. Generate report and export to Excel
f. In Excel, divide each individual Tech's Total Client Hours Worked #s by 13 (the number of weeks in any 3 months)
g. Selecting the Total Client Hours Worked column, provides the average across all Techs in the lower right-hand corner of excel
If the average is above or over the Touted Industry Average of 28 hours per week, you are in good shape (way above average, in our opinion) but the Company may still have some individual outliers not pulling their weight. If you have less than 28 hours per week, you have a Team Culture problem. If you need help analyzing the report, just email the export to Info@AGMSPCoaching.com, and we will be happy to assist for free.
How do you hold yourself or your team accountable?
How you address an individual or Team Culture problem is by holding people accountable. First, yourself, to hold the Team accountable, and then (of course) hold the Techs accountable.
It's this accountability piece that's huge. The improvement steps are not difficult and are all laid out in the Resource Utilization for MSPs eBook. While many have downloaded the book, very few have actually used it to hold their Techs accountable and, as a result, have wasted huge amounts of money, and valuable time that could have been used way more fruitfully. Wait, what? How?! Accountability! As hard as it is to believe, it is very common for MSP leaders to have issues holding themselves or their team accountable.
Answer the following three questions to see if you're one of them:
1) Could you use an extra $31,200 per Tech per Year? (multiply $31,200 by the number of Techs so you know exactly what we are talking about)
2) Are you unable to bring yourself to hold the Techs accountable to do the work they are being paid to do? (not to mention the work the Customers are expecting them to be held accountable to do)
3) Are you unable to even hold yourself accountable?
If you said "Yes" to any of those questions, keep reading…
Hopefully, you were able to say no to all three and can go about your day knowing you've got it figured out. If you said yes to even one, don't despair: Advanced Global MSP Coaching is here to help with the following resources:
1) The previously mentioned Autotask Standard Report to see just how bad the problem is
2) The previously mentioned Resource Planning for MSP eBook with the steps on how to clear the Tech's decks so they can focus on the Customer
3) Advanced Autotask Live Reports:
a. Link to a Sample of most requested reports.xlsx
b. Resource Utilization Report with five markers highlighting the problems and can be scheduled to run automatically https://vimeo.com/560449518/358e4af2c1
c. Real-Time Time Entry (RTTE) Report making it easier to hold the Techs accountable for accurate time entry reporting https://vimeo.com/560601068/3d4880dbc8
4) Blog articles on the subject
a. Accountability article:
b. RTTE article:
c. Resource Utilization article:
If you’re still struggling after all this, Advanced Global offers a Tech Performance Improvement Program that will hold you accountable to hold the Service Delivery Team accountable to do the work they are paid to do and the work the Customer expects them to do. For more information on the program, email Info@AGMSPCoaching.com or schedule a call with Mr. Bruce.
Summary:
· Most MSPs are wasting Billable Hours to the tune of $31,200 per Tech per year
· Most MSPs aren’t holding their Techs accountable
· Most MSPs are not holding themselves accountable
· Advanced Global MSP Coaching is here to help
And if the free resources are not enough, email Info@AGMSPCoaching.com or schedule a call with Mr. Bruce for more information on the Tech Performance Improvement Program.
- Steve & Co