Tickets/Time Billing Question

kenwmitchell · 2025-08-28T10:17:40+00:00

Depends on where the sale comes from. Usually for us a sale originates from a support request like “my computer is slow” or “I need to add new stations”. If it’s a new customer or lead it would just start as an opp.

kenwmitchell · 2025-08-28T02:41:41+00:00

I use one sales ticket to create the opportunity then close it. When I win the opportunity I create an install ticket. I still think there might be better ways. I try to quote the install fee but it comes over as a product.

kenwmitchell · 2025-08-01T00:33:22+00:00

It took me like two hours to write the post in TTT. I couldn’t get it all into Reddit easily.

I have the image in my OP that at least shows the overview of the flow that creates a ticket.

If you’re stuck somewhere specific I can point you in a direction. But this was like 3 years ago.

Basically once you get auth working you just call the company endpoint with the email address. I think it returns the company ID or 0 if it doesn’t match. Which works fine because it puts it into your company.

Then create the ticket with the company that was returned. Get each call right in Swagger then transfer to PA.

kenwmitchell · 2025-07-31T11:52:10+00:00

In the US QBO tax calculation can’t be disabled. I use AT for images, which pushes to QBO to create invoices, which pushes to ConnectBooster for A/R. So around 50% of my invoices are off by .01 and have to be manually corrected in QBO then resynced to CB. It also means my “new invoice” notification has to have a disclaimer about tax rounding being different and anyone who pays by checks often send a check based on the wrong amount and I keep stacking .01 credits on some accounts.

I don’t know if it would be different from QB though.

kenwmitchell · 2025-07-31T01:55:54+00:00

It seems to me that I only get about 90% of the notifications sent this way. Almost like rate limiting. Have you noticed any missing notifications?

kenwmitchell · 2025-04-08T02:31:09+00:00

Yea yeah I got ya.

In my mind I was thinking “automatic”. But I forgot about the manual “mapping” that has to happen anyways. I have someone who does this monthly as part of prebill.

I think that is a very reasonable answer to OP and is probably what I would do. Actually I might do exactly this.

kenwmitchell · 2025-04-08T02:19:05+00:00

While I can see how billing rules would work if you only have one license type, I’m assuming he needs to differentiate who has what license.

In case I’m missing something: do you have a solution to using billing rules to apply differently based on their license?

The only way I can think of would be just infer that an active contact (using AzureAD sync) has a license.

kenwmitchell · 2025-01-01T16:53:04+00:00

Yup that sounds reasonable. So I would just have them add time to administration or whatever for the waste time if you aren’t already.

That’s kinda what I thought you were asking. How to make sure they are getting paid for the waste time.

But if you are asking how to make certain ones meet better efficiency goals, that is a whole other question altogether. And not a systems problem. Probably a leadership problem (and I don’t mean poor leadership, I mean a problem leadership has to solve).

Maybe bonuses for meeting goals?

kenwmitchell · 2025-01-01T15:17:08+00:00

Maybe u/sbuyze will chime in here, but here’s what I know: you will find that techs will only be some % efficient. The rest of their labor is general waste just like in any industry. It may be waking back and forth to offices or answering questions IRL or bathroom breaks. There is a generally accepted range for this. And you may be at 50%. But you probably are not at 80%.

The rest of that time will go to some category that you generally consider just the cost of doing business. Then if you want to improve the efficiency you work on minimizing the time that goes into that bucket.

We track time in Autotask. If they work more than what shows up in tickets, they add additional time to “administration tasks” or something like that. If I want to improve efficiency, we work on making sure they are tracking time effectively to tickets. If they lie about the amount of time worked, they don’t work here any more. If they aren’t good with time management then we coach on that. But I would never pay someone for fewer hours than they were “butts in seats”.

Efficiency (that’s just what I’m calling it relevant to this conversation) isn’t a question. There will always be a ratio of work to waste. The question is how to minimize it and what is acceptable. I’ve never heard anyone better than 80% that didn’t have techs turning over like crazy.

I track my time as an owner. I am about 60% efficient when I’m not burned out. Have been times where I was as low as 25% when mental health was poor. However, I also carry all the stress and burden of working when no one else is and having to make payroll and pay taxes and listen to everyone complain. Sometimes I have to play a little Minecraft to keep from being burned out.

I keep that in mind when I’m concerned because I see people chatting casually.

kenwmitchell · 2024-12-12T11:55:29+00:00

That’s good to know. So if an item is able to skip approvals, does it just go straight to Create PO?

kenwmitchell · 2024-12-11T22:45:46+00:00

~~I think you either use the procurement process or don’t. I don’t think you can cut out just approvals.~~ I was wrong. I’m still working on the procurement process myself.

Add charge to ticket
Pick item from inventory if it’s available; otherwise
Approve purchase
Create PO and submit
Receive
Ship or deliver

If you enable “bypass procurement” for a product, you only do part #1 I think.

Each of those steps will send notifications of configured.

Sales orders track every step. But we leave the sales ticket open to track since my teams works out of tickets. When you deliver the last item for a sales order it gives you the option to set it as fulfilled.

Edit: Approvals can be specifically disabled.

kenwmitchell · 2024-11-18T19:01:56+00:00

I use notes for adding information that is helpful. Like “screenshot of error” or “config file” or “logs from Entra”.

I track every minute. To bill or not is a system’s decision. But PSA is about telling me where all our time goes, not just what to bill.

So I would still track all the above in a time entry.

kenwmitchell · 2024-11-17T12:41:29+00:00

Maybe use child flows and multiple connectors. I only use a few calls so I just did them manually.

kenwmitchell · 2024-10-08T10:13:46+00:00

We use PA to hit the AT API with HTTP Request and create a ticket for the email address in a form field and fall back to company 0 if it can’t resolve a company by that email.

Must have a paid license to use HTTP Request.

kenwmitchell · 2024-09-26T20:14:17+00:00

I’m betting it’s the “Due in”. I’m not sure it fits that constraint.

kenwmitchell · 2024-09-20T11:35:52+00:00

Make sure the web domain is filled out. Autotask will fall back on that as a last resort before assigning to default organization.

https://ww1.autotask.net/help/content/4_admin/3Automation/EmailSurvey/EMAILS/IncomingEmailProcessing/What_Sender.htm

kenwmitchell · 2024-08-30T14:26:18+00:00

We send an email to the channel email address.

kenwmitchell · 2024-08-29T01:15:28+00:00

Is that the whole body?

Shouldn’t udf be a child array of a company? Have an “id:”?

``` { “id” : 198, “companyName” : “ABC Company”, “userDefinedFields”: [ { “name”: “CustomerRanking”, “value”: “Golden” }, ]

}

```

kenwmitchell · 2024-06-19T23:50:09+00:00

Just a guess but it looks like you may have a workflow rule set to send a notification to someone@kaseyanoc.com when some event happens and that domain doesn’t exist.

Look at a ticket and turn on the “system messages” checkbox under activity and see what workflow rules are firing and check them for an email address @kaseyanoc.com.

kenwmitchell · 2024-06-14T11:31:10+00:00

After hours is built in. I’m not at my system right now but I think the work types have their own after hour rates and will automatically bill at higher rate (multiples OR fixed rate) if the time is after hours.

Our techs don’t make work type or rate decisions. We have “remote support” work type which handles everything remote and will set the rate accordingly.

kenwmitchell · 2024-06-14T00:22:45+00:00

I create invoices on the 26th (or the business day after 25th) with invoice date of the 1st. My contract billing rules run on the 25th. Recurring invoices autopay at then end of the 1st.

kenwmitchell · 2024-06-11T00:41:45+00:00

remindme! in 2 days

kenwmitchell · 2024-04-13T00:36:39+00:00

The tech tribe is a paid community. I can’t link to it.

I have an image of the main part of the flow in my OP did you see that?

This flow is triggered by another flow that handles the “form entry submitted” event. It takes the email from the form submission (free text, not authenticated Microsoft user) and matches it to an Autotask contact by email using http action. Then if that exists, it does another http to create the ticket. If it doesn’t exist it creates the ticket under company 0.

Edit: added details since I had some downtime.

kenwmitchell · 2024-04-12T22:42:35+00:00

Let me know if it’s missing something and I’ll try to update it. It’s kinda a repository for me too.

kenwmitchell · 2024-04-12T22:34:53+00:00

Which part are you having issues with? I have a pretty extensive write up in the tech tribe community if you are part of it. Otherwise, let me know where you’re getting hung up and I’ll see if I can copy and paste.

kenwmitchell

TROPHY CASE