Automate Your Workspace With PSA Software

In any industry, you want to maximize the billable hours provided by your workforce. The work you do for your clients is the heartbeat of your business, so you want to spend most of your time meeting your clients’ needs and finishing projects as far in advance of deadlines as possible. If you get to the end of your workday and you haven’t completed the client work that needs to be done, you may be wondering what’s consuming all your time.

The busy work that’s often required to keep companies moving forward every day can eat up billable hours and waste time that could be spent doing the work that matters to your business. Thankfully, Professional Services Automation (PSA) software can streamline your workday by automating time-consuming work and give you back billable hours. Here’s how.

Effective Reporting Pinpoints Bottlenecks

You can’t improve your business’s processes and choose the right systems to run them unless you understand what’s causing the problems. While spreadsheets can be helpful, they can be cluttered with errors due to manual input and version control issues that arise from conflicting data sets. The data may be directly in front of you, and it may even be organized, but that data doesn’t provide you with actionable steps to take to improve your firm if it’s simply a bunch of numbers that have no context or greater meaning.

Businesses that are intent on making specific, detailed improvements to their business processes need PSA software with robust business intelligence tools. By collecting all of your company’s critical data in one location, PSA software makes it possible for businesses to create a wide variety of services-centered reports that are built on accurate, complete data. Customizable dashboards allow you to choose the metrics that matter most to your business and break those metrics down so it’s easy to see what you’re doing well and what needs to be improved. When you’re ready to scale, use business intelligence to forecast revenue, margins, and resource capacity so you can plan future needs with ease.

Simplified Billing and Invoicing

Tracking time and billing clients at the end of the month can be fraught with time-consuming, tedious labor. Paper timesheets and billing require expensive overhead costs like postage, envelopes, stamps, and more. Not to mention, it takes excessive amounts of time to do all of this manually.

Instead, PSA software with robust financial management capabilities can be used to simplify the process. Time tracking software allows your team to use a mobile app to set timers and generate expense claims on the go, no matter where they’re working. Managers can define time and expense parameters, preventing mistakes. They can ensure that no one works too long on one project or goes over the agreed-upon retainer, which prevents an unhappy client at the end of the month. When done right, a professional services organization can provide great work that keeps clients satisfied without sacrificing profit margins that keep them in business.

PSA software simplifies invoicing by flagging items as they are ready to be billed. Plus, you can generate invoices online and send them securely through email, instead of doing everything by hand. With a modern system, businesses can also customize invoices to match your branding, logos, and any other marketing materials for a consistent look and feel.

Enhanced Team Collaboration

According to the Harvard Business Review, the average employee spends 28% of the workday on their emails. That’s about 2.6 hours a day on one method of communication. Add in meetings, phone calls, and Zoom, and there’s hardly any time to do actual work.

Great PSA software can speed up and simplify communication through contextual messaging, so you all stay on the same page without any wasted time. PSA users can communicate in one place with PSA software so that everyone knows where to look for the status of projects and who to talk to if they have specific questions about a certain task. Still, PSA software solutions are falling behind the modern needs of today’s professional services organizations, sparking a new evolution in PS software.

Modern technology that surpasses the limitations of traditional PSA software like the Kantata Professional Services Cloud allows for granular control, so you can bring in everyone related to the project, including the client, outside contractors, and your internal team. Specialized permissions ensure that internal data remains safe even if your contractors use the system. To quickly flag someone about a task or project, you can use an @ sign, which notifies them to check the portal. This, combined with centralized data and customized reports, can foster a workforce that’s well-equipped to succeed.

Simplify Workflows With the Kantata Professional Services Cloud

Kantata is dedicated to developing modern software solutions to help professional services organizations thrive. As outdated PSA software struggles to provide the complete support today’s businesses need, the Kantata Professional Services Cloud offers critical tools to automate and streamline processes, including:

• Business Intelligence
• Resource Management
• Project Management
• Time Tracking
• Financial Management

If you’re ready to automate your workspace and gain more billable hours, contact us today to learn more.