How Professional Services Automation Software Will Change Your Business

“The whole purpose of Professional Services Automation Software is to improve the workflow surrounding the management and delivery of project-based services. The ultimate benefit of a PSA solution is going to be increased productivity and profitability within a short period of time. The ability to achieve such benefits is based on the productivity of the company’s resources and the technology used in order to perform projects or services more effectively.” (Rudolf Melik)

Are you familiar with the story of the woeful professional services team having to look up all of the pieces of one accounts in a million different locations?

Kind of like that time you had to look up Customer John, so you clicked through your calendar to find the date you met with him, then had to go to Quick Books to find how much it was, then had to go to your email to find out what it was about and then finally got on to do what you wanted to do in the first place.

The unfortunate part is that this usually is more often than 'that one time’ and rather ‘that every time I want to rip my hair out.’

Let’s not rip your hair out

In the book, PSAs Optimizing Project & Service Oriented Organization by Rudolf Melik, Ruolf outlines what it feels like to be working in a professional services organization without a PSA software in the image below.

How PSA Software will Change your business_disorganized.png

If you are reading this, you may know exactly what this feels like.

The image emphasizes the pains of companies at an enterprise level, but if you have ever worked in a professional services organization without a PSA, this has been your life.

Before a Professional Services Automation tool is implemented, things can be quite complicated, messy and painful to track down. Information is fragmented all about, billing hours are lost, data is lost and business feels like, as portrayed, an array of wires with no systematic reason.

There is light at the end of the tunnel

A second image shown in the book by Rudolf Melik portrays the intended effect a PSA software tool will have on a company and how things will be different. It is a fantastic visual representation of the simplicity and effectiveness of the tool.

How PSA Software will Change your business_organized.png

Professional Services Automation engages the core components of a business and consolidates them into one allowing all of the most essential operations to be run through a central system. As shown in the image above, a PSA tool becomes the heart and the engine of your business, in a good way. It becomes the single resource for all key operational items. Not only does it organize, but it will consolidate processes.

Yay.

Vroom. vroom.

Calling upon the story we shared above where someone would have to click through three different tools to get all of the necessary information on an account, instead, a PSA will change your business this process to be as easy as typing in the name of who you are looking for.

Then you are done.

Boom.

Additionally, many PSA tools have quick integrations into accounting software like QuickBooks. Not only does this create an easy trail allowing you to follow specifics of an account but the full process can be completed in just a few clicks. You can see what they were billed, why they were billed and when they were billed. Information is much more accessible.

For example; Within SherpaDesk, you are able to open an account, click ‘bill’, all of the information is populated for that account in a new QuickBooks invoice and then you just hit ‘send.’ Done.

Double boom.

A great analogy is to think of a hardware company that makes all of their parts in-house vs. a company that outsources many small components.

A PSA tool is the equivalent of having everything done in-house. All things are made by the same team with strict integration in mind, all of the most essential pieces of a business are made to seamlessly mesh with each other. Processes stack on top of the other and not just with great user experience and design but also through advanced reporting that is called and communicated to the right people without stress.

Your business goes from bird’s nest to assembly line simple.

Say it with me.

"Boom."

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