Kaseya Launches Billing, Services Desk Modules

Kaseya is set to launch new service desk and service billing modules for its Kaseya IT Automation platform for managed service providers, according to the company.

The two new modules are add-ons to the company's services platform that can easily be integrated into the company's existing solution, said Gerard Beaulieu, director of product marketing at Kaseya.

"For our service providers, it's going to tackle another part of the business that we haven't been able to hit or by brute force they've used Excel or used a third party solution to manage those needs," Beaulieu said. "Now you can have a much broader solution set out of the gate and fewer solutions to have to worry about upgrading."

Service Billing 1.0 gives IT administrators a complete view of managed assets and lets them establish unique billing sets for specific asset types to ensure that each asset is accurately accounted for in each billing cycle, Beaulieu said.

Service Billing 1.0 should fit more than half of Kaseya's current MSP partners, especially those managing between 100 and 750 nodes and those that aren't using a full professional services automation product like Autotask, ConnectWise or TigerPaw, Beaulieu said.

"Those that are leveraging full PSA solutions or for that matter full-blown, project management resource allocation solutions, we want them to continue with those solutions. We build adapters for them. But small guys don't need a full-blown [PSA solution]. They might need some embedded billing help. And many others are only using Excel or QuickBooks," he said.

As an example, Beaulieu cited an example where an MSP might have to manually figure out how much to charge a customer monthly based on the number of laptops or Exchange servers they are managing.

"With Service Billing, that data flows automatically in to a bill and invoice. It knows exactly what quantities should be billed. This ensures optimum cash flow. Manually, you might have missed a couple of machines and need to rebill or just eat it," Beaulieu said.

Meanwhile, Service Desk 1.3 incorporates new organizational, contact visibility and workflow features to more efficiently manage service tickets, Beaulieu said.

"It drives process flows on ITIL standards. From a ticket entered you can interrogate through automation and run processes at that level to see what the CPU utilization is at that time, what the network connectivity speed is at that time. That's added to the ticket to give you a broader view of what's going on. When the technican gets to the point to remediate the issue he can click on an icon to see exactly what's going on with that machine," Beaulieu said. "You have full visibility of that machine, who the current user is, what the OS is, what tasks are going on."

Next: Pricing for Service Billing, Service Desk

Service Billing 1.0 can be added on to Kaseya's Essentials Bundle for 75 cents per seat, per month but is included for no extra charge in its Advanced Bundle, which starts at $6 per seat, pre month, Beaulieu said. MSPs can also purchase a perpetual option for $1,000 per module, he said.

Service Desk 1.3 starts at $1.50 per seat, per month but is also included in the Advanced Bundle. A perpetual option for Service Desk 1.3 costs $2,500, Beaulieu said. The ability to add-on modules to their existing Kaseya solution should make it easier for MSPs to manage clients, Bealieu said.

"It's all-encompassing automation. When you have a single solution, it helps with simplicity. They mean learn one module now but it makes it easier to take on additional functionality compared to having to bolt on another solution," he said. "Maybe they use LogMeIn for remote control, Symantec for backup, McAfee for antivirus. When you can grab our entire portfolio with combined solutions while doing automated billing processes you can streamline your cash flow in a process-driven manner."