Tag Archive for: managedserviceproviders

FocusPlanit In The News

FocusPlanit In The News

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We recently partnered with technology law firm Scott & Scott, LLP to help them maximize their contract management solution with ConnectWise Sell. As a result, our very own Calvin Johnson, Director of Sales was interviewed and a subsequent press release issued by Legal IT Professionals was issued. For your convenience we’ve included the press release in this blog, or you may find it online here.

The Press Release

Scott & Scott, LLP Launches Contracts-as-a-Service Solution for Managed Services Providers Using ConnectWise Sell

May 19, 2022

Technology law firm Scott & Scott, LLP has built an integration between its contract management solution and ConnectWise Sell, which is automated quote and proposal software for the IT services industry.

Scott & Scott, LLP offers a cloud- based contracts-as-a-service solution for managed service providers, allowing MSPs to deploy customized versions of its master legal templates for online review and acceptance by end users. Using the Order Porter and quote templates within ConnectWise Sell, MSPs can collect e-signatures, enter into click-wrap agreements, and obtain browser wrap consent from clients for the online terms and conditions provided by the firm.

“The industry is moving to digital contracting and we are helping our clients implement scalable solutions to manage risk,” said Robert Scott, Scott & Scott managing partner.

Industry-leading ConnectWise and MSP consulting firm FocusPlanit is working with Scott & Scott to get the legal agreements the firm has created for its MSP clients integrated with ConnectWise Sell’s quoting software.

The collaboration should result in MSPs being better protected in a time where technology is changing so fast that MSPs are at high cybersecurity and ransomware risks.

“Scott & Scott is providing the contract management solution and we are effectively helping clients implement it using Sell,” according to Calvin Johnson, director of sales and marketing at FocusPlanit. “Since the MSPs we work with on a daily basis aren’t attorneys and are just trying to take care of their businesses, they need the legal aspect to be out of sight and out of mind. We want to provide any help we can to do that.”

Scott & Scott’s solution allows MSPs to bind their customers to services agreements the firm writes using the quote acceptance and electronic signature capabilities of Sell. By integrating directly with the quote, the solution collapses the sales and contracting process into one easy online transaction. The firm was referred by a client to Johnson, one of the early employees at ConnectWise and someone with vast experience in implementing ConnectWise Sell for MSPs.

“Most MSPs lack the internal resources necessary to program Sell to integrate with hosted online terms and conditions,” Johnson said. Saying that he found Scott to be unique in how he explained why legal agreements for MSPs should be structured in a certain way, Johnson said that Scott is “far more technical than any other attorney I have talked with in the MSP space.”

“That matters,” Johnson added, noting that while most lawyers have an idea about the cloud and MSPs’ services, “Rob has a great understanding of the structure of it all.” Johnson also said that being comfortable sending FocusPlanit clients to Scott & Scott because of the collaboration is a big deal.

“We are very picky as to who we send our partners to because if they go out of business or get in trouble, we lose them,” Johnson said. “So, it’s significant to find legal resources that we can send them to. Scott & Scott provides that.”

Further, the firm is being innovative in how it is helping its IT clients, Johnson said. “Scott & Scott is looking to take things a step further and say, ‘Not only will we supply the legal terms and keep them up to date, but we will help you implement them and get them into the quote and proposal.’ It’s a new approach compared to the firm’s peers,” Johnson said. “Nobody else has taken the next step.” It’s a crucial step, however, because it is key to have a legal document that is laid out in a way that a judge will enforce, Johnson said. “If you don’t have that, it doesn’t really matter,” Johnson said. “That’s the part Scott & Scott is trying to fix.”

Johnson said that a person may buy a cable offline and be given the box with the cable, but that doesn’t mean they will know how to install it. He said that if installing the cable is analogous to putting together an effective, potent legal agreement for MSPs, Scott & Scott is, for the first time in history, installing the cable and helping the cable buyer understand how it works. “Many customers want to use ConnectWise Sell but are bogged down in the implementation process. Not only are we showing them how to leverage the tool, we are offering standard templates for quotes and proposals,” Scott said. “Working with FocusPlanit, we now have a standard set of integrations that can easily be applied to any Sell user’s deployment. Thus, we are able to go live with ConnectWise much faster and cheaper than we would have had we not engaged with FocusPlanit.”

Johnson also complimented Scott’s dedication to FocusPlanit clients, pointing out that Scott helped one over the phone at 7 a.m. on a Saturday. “We know we can pass them off to Scott & Scott and they’re taken care of,” Johnson said. “If I can help the firm, that’s awesome, but Scott & Scott is certainly helping us. It’s not just about the need to prove to a judge that a client agreed to X, Y and Z terms. If MSP companies aren’t covered properly and their legal terms aren’t up to date, you could lose your entire business in the blink of an eye.”

Need An MSP? FocusPlanit is Here For You

Are you looking to make your IT services and business operations more efficient, so you have more resources to put toward your core business? Then it’s time to call us. FocusPlanit is a concentrated team of professional, seasoned experts focused on helping you create and maintain a successful business. We are on a mission to help business owners build highly functioning and sustainable operations leveraging existing systems.

FocusPlanit serves the entire United States and is the industry’s premier team of highly qualified ConnectWise, QuickBooks, Wise-Sync, GoZynta, CharTec, ConnectBooster experts who have dedicated years of their professional life implementing and optimizing these solutions. Contact us today to schedule a complimentary consultation.

TopLeft: A Complimentary Program To ConnectWise

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TopLeft a company we partner with has launched a software program that provides an overlay to ConnectWise. It allows the user to visualize their work to understand project progress, accelerate helpdesk dispatch, identify neglected tasks, and remove the bottlenecks that slow down your team. The best part about it? It Integrates seamlessly with ConnectWise.

A Enhanced ConnectWise User Experience

Are you a visual learner? By using TopLeft: a complimentary program To ConnectWise you have the opportunity to see tickets and projects without getting lost in the details. The professionals at FocusPlanit can implement TopLeft into your existing ConnectWise program.

You can watch as tickets, projects, and opportunities move across the boards. The position on the board indicates how the work is progressing in the team’s pipeline. You have the ability to drag and drop cards to indicate their status and importance compared to other cards.

See how work is distributed by grouping cards according to project, assigned technician, type, or other properties.

 Avoid Unnecessary Work Cycles

So many times, miscommunication causes unnecessary work cycles. Integrating the TopLeft program with ConnectWise allows managers to plan and monitor projects and tasks and engineers use it to understand priorities and indicate progress.

By working with an MSP like FocusPlanit to leverage all the necessary tools, you can ensure your systems run smoothly and help integrate software to maximize their use into your daily processes, allowing you to focus on your core business.

Are you looking to make your IT services and business operations more efficient, so you have more resources to put toward your core business? Then it’s time to call us. FocusPlanit is a concentrated team of professional, seasoned experts focused on helping you create and maintain a successful business. We are on a mission to help business owners build highly functioning and sustainable operations leveraging existing systems.

FocusPlanit serves the entire United States and is the industry’s premier team of highly qualified ConnectWise, QuickBooks, Wise-Sync, GoZynta, CharTec, ConnectBooster experts who have dedicated years of their professional life implementing and optimizing these solutions. Contact us today to schedule a complimentary consultation.

Teamwork and integration concept

Reasons To Hire A ConnectWise Consulting Partner

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Stop allowing your ConnectWise programs to control you and start focusing your efforts on building a better workflow by utilizing a ConnectWise consulting partner. Simple goals can seem overwhelming when you don’t know where to start. A consulting partner can help turn those goals into measurable solutions.

Here are the top five reasons to hire a ConnectWise Consulting Partner:

  1. There is never enough time to train users and run your business. Even with an in-house power user, day-to-day business functions take precedent and keep you from empowering your staff to utilize ConnectWise programs to their fullest extent.
  2. You don’t know what you don’t know. Have you ever found yourself wondering if there are functions of your programs available, but you just don’t know where to find them or how to use them? A consultant can help your existing programs become work horses for your workflow.
  3. Too many tools, not enough integration. Leverage your sales software systems like ConnectWise and ConnectWise Sell to expedite your sales process from gathering and organizing leads to procuring the products and develop a sustainable strategy for operations. A consultant can help manage agreements and invoices as well as integrating systems like ConnectWise and QuickBooks.
  4. You need reports with data that will drive decisions. Let’s face it, we all can’t be data exports. Using a consultant will help you leverage your systems to improve financial reporting, processes, and accuracy, ensuring your bottom line is reliable and protected.
  5. Hiring the right person to manage your programs is next to impossible. Rising costs involved with onboarding a new employee in the current economy is difficult for any budget. Not to mention finding the right person for the job is exhausting and a full-time job itself. A consultant can provide you all the solutions you need at the right time for a fraction of the cost of hiring a full-time employee.

Master your systems by partnering with a ConnectWise consultant in order to bring new revenue into your business. A strategic partner can help you develop the right strategy to meet your business goals, support in your sales processes, operational systems, and your finance tools, so you can keep your business running smoothly.

FocusPlanit is one of the industry’s premier ConnectWise Consultants serving the entire United States. Collectively our team has over 30 years of experience with ConnectWise and can help you optimize your programs and systems transforming them from an expense into your most valuable asset. Contact us today and let us be your partner in success. You can learn more about our offerings and team at https://focusplanit.com/.

Running an Efficient and Effective Organization

Running an Efficient and Effective Organization

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Businesses everywhere now more than ever are experiencing pressures to run an efficient and effective organization with limited resources. It is critical business processes and operations are designed in a way that limits bottlenecks, reduces duplicative efforts, and improves processing time. It is critical organizations effectively use technology to automate and streamline processes across the organization with tools like ConnectWise. By becoming more efficient and effective the organization can devote its time and resources to delivering the services their customers rely on.

Current State: What’s Broken

Organizations evaluating efficiency and effectiveness often struggle to answer these types of questions:

Are our processes and policies aligned to industry best practice?

Are our operating procedures streamlined?

Do we leverage our current technology to automate processes?

Do we duplicate any steps in our processes, creating waste and inefficiency?

Do we have an internal system for managing time effectively?

Do we have an effective system for account management of existing and potential clients?

Future State: A Plan for Improvement

If you are not happy with the answers to the above questions, a process review can help you determine the next course of action. You will need a qualified partner to help you get on track to an efficient and effective operations. You will need to identify current state versus future desired state

This review will provide you with three key insights:

  1. A strategy to meet your business goals.
  2. Identify the right structure and necessary tools needed to keep your office running smoothly.
  3. Leverage support in your sales processes, your operational systems, and your finance tools.

Each division of your organization should be evaluated, including sales processes, operations and finance. This will ensure that the final plan ensures all areas of the organization will be streamlined for efficiency and effectiveness. Optimize your systems and change it from an expense into your most valuable asset.

Sales processes include: quoting, sales management, sales reporting, product catalogs, opportunity management, leads management, procurement, and sales orders.

Operations include: automation, service desk, dispatching, project management, time management, scheduling, RMM integration, KPI reporting, SLA management, vendor management, relationship management, and onboarding.

Financial systems include: invoicing, tools in place like QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, etc., agreements, reporting, payment collection integrations, purchase orders, expense management, product catalog management.

Increasing your organizational efficiency and effectiveness means you will increase the productivity you can achieve, given your specific number of resources. The more output delivered using those same resources, the more efficient your organization will be. Sounds simple but without the help of a consulting partner like FocusPlanit can you spend valuable time “spinning your wheels”.

For more information on this topic, or to learn how FocusPlanit can help your organization be more effective and efficient, contact our team. FocusPlanit serves the entire United States and is the industry’s premier team of highly qualified ConnectWise, QuickBooks, Wise-Sync, GoZynta, CharTec, ConnectBooster experts who have dedicated years of their professional life implementing and optimizing these solutions. Contact us today to schedule a complimentary consultation.

The ConnectWise® Platform: The Powerhouse Your Business Needs

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What Does the ConnectWise® Platform Offer?

In short, ConnectWise® provides businesses with a single operational platform. The platform offers solutions for business management, unified management, cybersecurity management, and expert services.

Let’s look at each offering a bit closer:

The business management tool, ConnectWise Manage® brings order to your operations, ensuring that your teams are communicating and information is effectively being shared. It covers everything from help desk workflow to procurement and even time tracking and project management. Not the mention the insightful reporting tools.

ConnectWise Unified Management® software brings solutions together to create a service delivery offering fit for a Technical Service Provider of any size. Monitor, manage, and backup networks and environments of all shapes and sizes.

ConnectWise Fortify® allows you to stay ahead of security threats with advanced tools to monitor networks, identify risks, and have strategies in place to maintain 24/7 security for you and your clients.

ConnectWise® expert services can provide businesses with a fully staffed help desk for day-to-day tasks or highly skilled technicians to handle advance networking issues. Already have your own technicians but have an ad-hoc project? They can cover that as well.

The Implementation Help You Need

So you made the smart decision to incoporate ConnectWise® into your business operations, but now what? You will need a team of professional, seasoned experts to help you create and maintain a successful platform. But don’t just settle for the employee who says they can “figure it out”, make sure you are set up for success with a highly trained ConnectWise® Consultant like FocusPlanit. FocusPlanit is the industry’s premier team of highly qualified ConnectWise experts who have dedicated years of their professional life implementing and optimizing this solution. Our hands-on experience working with hundreds of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) as well as our vast knowledge of the industry, allows our team to provide the unique ability to advise and teach your organization far beyond just the basics.

Use your business systems to its fullest potential. We can partner with you to optimize your system and change it from an expense into your most valuable asset. Working with our dedicated team of consultants, we’ll look at your implementations to identify and streamline the gaps within your current processes.

FocusPlanit is one of the industry’s premier ConnectWise® Consultants serving the entire United States. Contact us today and let us be your partner in success. You can learn more about our offerings and team at https://focusplanit.com/.