Hilltop Consultants Takes the Guesswork Out of Fixed-fee Agreements
MSPCFO’s business intelligence unlocks the
per-client profitability from PSA data
LOCATION
Washington, D.C
FOUNDED
2003
(Acquired in 2020 by Intelliteach, now Frontline Managed Services)
PRESIDENT & OWNER
Jim Turner
SecureTech Achieves Key Results With MSPCFO
Calculate Engineer Efficiency
Compare cost and revenue per engineer to find and correct inefficiencies.
Evaluate Fixed-fee Agreements
Based on profit contribution rather than misleading revenue numbers.
Inform Strategic
Initiatives
Make underperforming agreements more profitable and better serve all clients.
As new COO Doug Furst sought to implement best practices that would boost Hilltop Consultants’ profits, he realized he did not have the tools that would tell him where the MSP’s profits were actually based. Big clients with big service-level agreements generated large chunks of revenue, of course, but were they really paying for the resources Hilltop invested to perform the tasks required? Could smaller clients be more profitable because of their lower demand on engineering time?
Among other answers, Doug needed to know how each client stacked up in terms of profit margin. This knowledge would drive future marketing and business positioning strategies and provide the impetus the company needed for matching the fees current clients were paying to the services they were using.
As new COO Doug Furst sought to implement best practices that would boost Hilltop Consultants’ profits, he realized he did not have the tools that would tell him where the MSP’s profits were actually based. Big clients with big service-level agreements generated large chunks of revenue, of course, but were they really paying for the resources Hilltop invested to perform the tasks required? Could smaller clients be more profitable because of their lower demand on engineering time?
Among other answers, Doug needed to know how each client stacked up in terms of profit margin. This knowledge would drive future marketing and business positioning strategies and provide the impetus the company needed for matching the fees current clients were paying to the services they were using.
As new COO Doug Furst sought to implement best practices that would boost Hilltop Consultants’ profits, he realized he did not have the tools that would tell him where the MSP’s profits were actually based. Big clients with big service-level agreements generated large chunks of revenue, of course, but were they really paying for the resources Hilltop invested to perform the tasks required? Could smaller clients be more profitable because of their lower demand on engineering time?
Among other answers, Doug needed to know how each client stacked up in terms of profit margin. This knowledge would drive future marketing and business positioning strategies and provide the impetus the company needed for matching the fees current clients were paying to the services they were using.
With MSPCFO, SecureTech is able to see over 50 reports and access the detailed granular data it needs to make well-founded business decisions. Data analyses such as Hours Per Ticket, Tickets Per Node, and Hours Per Node provide insights into which agreements are profitable at line-item level.
Getting insights on agreement profitability by customer helps the company decide how to focus its account management, marketing, training, and service efforts. MSPCFO’s analytical tools reveal optimal strategies:
- How many hours per month SecureTech should spend with a customer before considering a fee increase
- Whether to provide technicians need additional product proficiency training
- How well the business is running
Hilltop Consultants discovered that the dozens of reports MSPCFO creates from PSA data could deliver the analytics it needed to get a handle on flat fee billing. Immediately after importing the data, Doug knew he had made the right decision. MSPCFO showed Doug which clients brought in revenue above the company’s targeted hourly rate and which were taxing Hilltop’s engineering bandwidth far in excess of the monthly fees they were paying.
Perhaps more importantly MSPCFO uncovered the reasons behind fee/service incongruities. Doug could see areas in which his engineers were spending too much time or not billing for services rendered. He could see which clients were underserved and posed flight risks. And he could see how to elevate underperforming agreements to higher margins to bring an immediate bottom-line improvement.
“Either we were overcharging them, or we were not delivering what we’re supposed to deliver,” Doug said. “Either way, it didn’t match up with Hilltop’s core values, where client relationships are paramount.
Hilltop Consultants discovered that the dozens of reports MSPCFO creates from PSA data could deliver the analytics it needed to get a handle on flat fee billing. Immediately after importing the data, Doug knew he had made the right decision. MSPCFO showed Doug which clients brought in revenue above the company’s targeted hourly rate and which were taxing Hilltop’s engineering bandwidth far in excess of the monthly fees they were paying.
Perhaps more importantly MSPCFO uncovered the reasons behind fee/service incongruities. Doug could see areas in which his engineers were spending too much time or not billing for services rendered. He could see which clients were underserved and posed flight risks. And he could see how to elevate underperforming agreements to higher margins to bring an immediate bottom-line improvement.
“Either we were overcharging them, or we were not delivering what we’re supposed to deliver,” Doug said. “Either way, it didn’t match up with Hilltop’s core values, where client relationships are paramount.
Hilltop Consultants discovered that the dozens of reports MSPCFO creates from PSA data could deliver the analytics it needed to get a handle on flat fee billing. Immediately after importing the data, Doug knew he had made the right decision. MSPCFO showed Doug which clients brought in revenue above the company’s targeted hourly rate and which were taxing Hilltop’s engineering bandwidth far in excess of the monthly fees they were paying.
Perhaps more importantly MSPCFO uncovered the reasons behind fee/service incongruities. Doug could see areas in which his engineers were spending too much time or not billing for services rendered. He could see which clients were underserved and posed flight risks. And he could see how to elevate underperforming agreements to higher margins to bring an immediate bottom-line improvement.
“Either we were overcharging them, or we were not delivering what we’re supposed to deliver,” Doug said. “Either way, it didn’t match up with Hilltop’s core values, where client relationships are paramount.
Award-Winning Solutions and Dedication to MSPs
8+
Years Helping
MSPs Increase
Profitability and Improve Efficiency
2019
IT Nation Evolve
Content Champion
2020
Connectwise Evolve Community
Influencer
2021
Launch of the Autotask Integration
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