I figured this could be of some help to other members so I will share a little about what product I chose and why.....
My company is strictly business support and most are MSP clients with recurring contracts. I started my company in September and needed a system to do the following:
- Manage estimates and invoicing
- Manage tickets
- Handle credit card processing
- Handle recurring invoices/reminders/tickets
- Handle CRM information
So I saw the ad for MHelpDesk and just signed up for it. I came from a company that used Autotask and Quickbooks. I didn't want that heavy of a system and wanted something simple that I could get into. I also didn't want to sync invoices into Quickbooks. I wanted all the business contained in one product.
As I started to use MHelpDesk I had a hard time adjusting to following the flow of creating a ticket, updating ticket, adding time and invoicing. This wasn't a fault of the program just a fault of my own. I really could have done everything out of Quickbooks but I wanted to handle tickets. As I started to get more into the time tracking/ticketing flow I started to dislike how items progressed through MHelpDesk. I think it was mostly the layout. I am a fan of having everything on one screen verses multiple tabs and section above. At this point I had some requests into the company and didn't get resolutions quick enough. I get it they are a smaller company so I can't expect rapid response to issues. As I had more little issues, I contacted support and the sales team and explained HOW I WANTED it to work and most of the time the responses felt like "this is the way our system does it, adjust to it." Okay it can't be tailored to everyone. I get that this system wasn't designed for an MSP. But I need it to work for me. I needed the recurring tickets.
As I was annoyed at some issue I was having (I really don't remember the details since I haven't touched the system in months) I started looking on the forums and saw RepairShopR listed. I gave them a call and I believe on a Saturday Robert and Troy called me back. I liked the look and feel of the program but again wasn't for MSP. I decided to try the system. After a failed migration of data (from my end) I started from scratch with importing customer information. As I started to use the system I enjoyed the feel and flow of every aspect.
So now I start invoicing and doing tickets out of the system and I hit the free limit. I pony up the monthly fee and sign up for a plan. I am still paying for MHelpDesk at this time. I am now doing all my invoice and tickets out of RepairShopR. I slowly start bringing over the recurring invoices from MHelpDesk and just keep that active to bring out archival information.
I start taking credit cards using Stripe for integration. I just decided to ditch them and pay a little more and go with Authorize.net. I did this for simplicity on my back end work. With stripe you can't automate payments. Every month I had to manually process a card through stripe and then record into RepairShopR. I don't have the time for that **** so I pay a few bucks more a month and now my recurring invoices automatically take payment.
I am now 5-6 months into using the system and start running into some wants. I reach out to Robert and explain my issues (cloning invoices, estimates, reports, time tracking, etc) and now get on a 1 hour service call with him and Troy. We start talking about how I am a MSP and the system was designed for Break/Fix clients and Repair Shops. I already knew that the software wasn't designed for MSP and especially myself who has some oddball requests. However every item we discussed they took note of and started to adapt these changes. Another few weeks go by and I met with some other want, so I contact them and again we talk and they start brainstorming ideas. These are then implemented.
So in the past when I had requests into MHelpDesk I was met with "change your way of doing things." Now I am giving ideas that seem to be getting traction to add into RepairShopR.
Up until 5 minutes ago I was paying for both MHelpDesk and RepairShopR. I just canceled MHelpDesk and am glad I went with RepairShopR Even thought I am paying more per month I don't care. It is making my life much easier as I continue to implement features of the product. I am still only utilizing a fraction of the system but I keep adding more and more items.
My suggestion for anyone that is starting this route is sign up for the free version and try it. It was a pain to migrate customers and all recurring invoices, before you get 4-5 months in and hate the product really try them out. I started to look at other products out there and they all had limitations. I feel in the next few months, RepairShopR is going to offer some drastic changes for MSP companies.
My company is strictly business support and most are MSP clients with recurring contracts. I started my company in September and needed a system to do the following:
- Manage estimates and invoicing
- Manage tickets
- Handle credit card processing
- Handle recurring invoices/reminders/tickets
- Handle CRM information
So I saw the ad for MHelpDesk and just signed up for it. I came from a company that used Autotask and Quickbooks. I didn't want that heavy of a system and wanted something simple that I could get into. I also didn't want to sync invoices into Quickbooks. I wanted all the business contained in one product.
As I started to use MHelpDesk I had a hard time adjusting to following the flow of creating a ticket, updating ticket, adding time and invoicing. This wasn't a fault of the program just a fault of my own. I really could have done everything out of Quickbooks but I wanted to handle tickets. As I started to get more into the time tracking/ticketing flow I started to dislike how items progressed through MHelpDesk. I think it was mostly the layout. I am a fan of having everything on one screen verses multiple tabs and section above. At this point I had some requests into the company and didn't get resolutions quick enough. I get it they are a smaller company so I can't expect rapid response to issues. As I had more little issues, I contacted support and the sales team and explained HOW I WANTED it to work and most of the time the responses felt like "this is the way our system does it, adjust to it." Okay it can't be tailored to everyone. I get that this system wasn't designed for an MSP. But I need it to work for me. I needed the recurring tickets.
As I was annoyed at some issue I was having (I really don't remember the details since I haven't touched the system in months) I started looking on the forums and saw RepairShopR listed. I gave them a call and I believe on a Saturday Robert and Troy called me back. I liked the look and feel of the program but again wasn't for MSP. I decided to try the system. After a failed migration of data (from my end) I started from scratch with importing customer information. As I started to use the system I enjoyed the feel and flow of every aspect.
So now I start invoicing and doing tickets out of the system and I hit the free limit. I pony up the monthly fee and sign up for a plan. I am still paying for MHelpDesk at this time. I am now doing all my invoice and tickets out of RepairShopR. I slowly start bringing over the recurring invoices from MHelpDesk and just keep that active to bring out archival information.
I start taking credit cards using Stripe for integration. I just decided to ditch them and pay a little more and go with Authorize.net. I did this for simplicity on my back end work. With stripe you can't automate payments. Every month I had to manually process a card through stripe and then record into RepairShopR. I don't have the time for that **** so I pay a few bucks more a month and now my recurring invoices automatically take payment.
I am now 5-6 months into using the system and start running into some wants. I reach out to Robert and explain my issues (cloning invoices, estimates, reports, time tracking, etc) and now get on a 1 hour service call with him and Troy. We start talking about how I am a MSP and the system was designed for Break/Fix clients and Repair Shops. I already knew that the software wasn't designed for MSP and especially myself who has some oddball requests. However every item we discussed they took note of and started to adapt these changes. Another few weeks go by and I met with some other want, so I contact them and again we talk and they start brainstorming ideas. These are then implemented.
So in the past when I had requests into MHelpDesk I was met with "change your way of doing things." Now I am giving ideas that seem to be getting traction to add into RepairShopR.
Up until 5 minutes ago I was paying for both MHelpDesk and RepairShopR. I just canceled MHelpDesk and am glad I went with RepairShopR Even thought I am paying more per month I don't care. It is making my life much easier as I continue to implement features of the product. I am still only utilizing a fraction of the system but I keep adding more and more items.
My suggestion for anyone that is starting this route is sign up for the free version and try it. It was a pain to migrate customers and all recurring invoices, before you get 4-5 months in and hate the product really try them out. I started to look at other products out there and they all had limitations. I feel in the next few months, RepairShopR is going to offer some drastic changes for MSP companies.
I work from home and most of my work is on the road and mainly residential or small business. I have no plan to get more people so cost of licensing extra users won't come into it. I won't be opening a shop either. The layout of Repairshopr is more fluent from initial usage but change will always be an issue initially to a new system.
