What’s Involved in Switching or Implementing a PSA Solution?
Professional services automation software is an end-to-end solution for running your service-based business and managing the data generated by your various business processes, which is why some have referred to it as the ERP software of the service industry. PSA software is designed to automate and manage common business tasks within your business. The goal is to ensure your customer projects are delivered on time, on or under budget, and meets the your customer’s needs and requirements.
PSA software is primarily used by service-based companies - i.e. companies that produce something other than physical goods, such as any consulting based firm. As a service business your likely challenge is balancing front-end service delivery and customer satisfaction with back-end operations (resource planning etc.). Any industry that is project-focused and client-accountable will likely benefit from a PSA software. Companies that do implement PSA have proven track records of beating out their competition and streamlining processes almost instantly.
Before we dive into what's involved in implementing or switching, it's important that you first understand the value a PSA solution can bring to your business.
How can PSA help my business?
Everyone who is in the market for PSA software wants the same answer. So, how can PSA software save time, money, and grow my business? We discuss 5 ways we believe PSA software can help your business grow...
Using one solution to manage everything
Think about how many solutions your business uses to manage its day to day operations. This ranges from individual solutions for CRM, resource management, time tracking, project management, financials, and more! Calculate how much you are spending on license fees for each solution and the time you spend re-keying data from one solution to another. PSA software contains all your information in one unified solution.
Reducing human error
Constantly re-keying data on a daily basis is guaranteed to introduce some level of errors, some may be costly, other ones just take time to fix. One unified solution where data is only entered once may not completely eliminate errors, but it will eliminate your transcription errors.
Optimize your resource utilization
A PSA solution gives you insights on what your team is working on throughout each day. You can use this feature to quickly identify who is working on what, is it billable or non-billable, allowing you to close the gap in revenue leakage. Normally you may wait until meetings or a weekly/monthly analysis before you know what's going on, with PSA your resources tasks can be updated daily for review by stakeholders. Think about the amount of time you could save with this ability.
Focusing on your best clients
Using a PSA solution that shows all your revenue and cost in real-time, without any data noise, broken down by clients and projects, without any manual processing or spreadsheets, you will quickly see which clients are your cash cows and which ones are draining resources time.
Automatic invoicing and insights
Using PSA solution that automatically generates your invoices based on client projects will save you a substantial amount of time and improve the accuracy, timeliness, and speed of your invoicing process. PSA will help you notice outstanding invoices associated with clients and help you chase payments before you proceed with projects. You will no longer need to think, "Did we invoice John Doe for xyc". All your financial data is available in one solution in real-time.
What's Involved In Changing?
When choosing a PSA Solution, many vendors are not clear about how painless and clean the whole process can be with the right industry experts and team-work.Whether you’re unhappy with your current PSA solution, or if you’re considering moving to a new PSA solution from an existing legacy solution, here are some specific questions you need to ask before you consider making a switch:
How much disruption will this cause?
This is entirely dependent on how well the implementation process is planned and the experience of the vendor's implementation team. Many businesses make the mistake of viewing their new business software implementation as something that will be done along with their current workload. This is really not the case, doing this would actually cause more disruption to the business. Look at it this way, if your team was already fully resourced to working on other client projects, you couldn't just book another new customer project and expect your team to complete it outside of their work hours and the project to be successful? Of course not! The practical approach is to treat the new PSA software implementation just like any other new customer project. Start with a defined scope, resource allocation, budget and time frame, balanced against other customer projects.
How much time & resources will this take?
When making the switch it's important that you have the resources readily available to work on the implementation. This will ensure the process moves as quickly as possible
enabling both you and your vendor to stick to agreed timelines. You should always have a clear conversation with your vendor in advance to define the exact resources and time needed on both ends to make the implementation successful. Before you get scared away, It's also important to remember that your PSA vendor will complete the majority of the work involved from gathering requirements, configuring the software to your specific needs and even training your end-users.
What if we already have a process in place?
When it comes to process, many businesses take on the daunting task of figuring out their own way that "kind-off" works. A much cleaner approach is for the
business stakeholders to work with the vendor's consultation team from day 1 to help them learn and document current business processes. Before you implement your new PSA solution the vendor can instead have a discussion with your team on the ‘best practices’ about how to map your business processes to the take full advantage of the new software’s capabilities. Sometimes this will be handled by configuration options in the software, and sometimes you may want to consider altering your business processes slightly to take better advantage of your new PSA software’s full capabilities.
Choosing the right PSA software for your organization is an important decision because you’re not just buying PSA software for what it does today, but also for how it’s likely to evolve over the next 10 years. You need to ensure your chosen solution is built on modern technologies, cloud-based, and capable of evolving with your business and your needs increase.
In conclusion, there will never be an ideal time to switch your businesses PSA software. But remember, the more your business grows, the more you're going to need a scalable PSA solution to help your team become more effective and efficient.
Why Not Trial the PSA Software Built by Service Professionals for Service Professionals!
CrossConcept Continuum goes beyond traditional PSA solutions available today by incorporating cutting-edge UI technology making the solution more user-friendly, resulting in fewer clicks within the solution and time spent logging data. CrossConcept Continuum has been built from the ground up to integrate with all major accounting systems to seamlessly synchronize projects and accounting within one unified system.
Our innovative PSA solution allows organizations to maximize profitability by integrating connecting projects and financial accounting, enabling you to manage all stages of your project from conception to completion and deliver on your promises.
CrossConcept has decades of experience helping service organizations automate their processes. Clients have ranged in size from a handful of people to over thirty thousand. The founder's and team’s real-world experience is what drove and shaped the creation of CrossConcept Continuum.
Our solution is a simple, yet powerful PSA solution built with the end-user in mind - fast, flexible, powerful, and user-friendly! We are offering all new clients a free 2-week trial with no contract obligations. This is a great opportunity for any business to try out the solution and decide if PSA software is for you!
To book a free 15-minute consultation, email: marketing@crossconceptinc.com or call: 1-888-528-3898 x110.