For IT consultants and small managed service providers
Per-seat agreements, hourly tickets and hardware on one monthly bill.
A managed services client pays a flat fee per user, then needs a firewall upgrade on a Saturday morning, two new laptops and a license bump. Fee-Lion bills the agreement automatically every month and gives you one clean place to add the after-hours work, the project hours and the hardware, so nothing outside the contract slips through.
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Sound familiar?
The paperwork side of the job.
- The client added four users in March and you are still billing for 14.
- After-hours and weekend work gets done at the regular rate, or not billed at all, because nobody wrote it down at 7am on a Saturday.
- Laptops and switches you resell sit on your card for weeks before they reach an invoice.
- Project work outside the agreement (an office move, a server migration) blurs into "covered" support.
- Software licenses renew on your account and never get passed on.
A real example
What an invoice looks like.
Line by line, the way you’d actually bill it: quantity times rate, tax worked out for you.
- Your client opens one link and pays by card.
- Reminders go out on their own until it’s paid.
- Your logo, your terms, and your line items saved for next time.
Prepared for Office manager — Calder & Weiss CPAs
| Item | Qty | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Managed IT per user: helpdesk, patching, endpoint security, backup monitoring 18 seat × $125.00 | 18 seat | $125.00 | $2,250.00 |
| Server and backup appliance monitoring 1 mo × $150.00 | 1 mo | $150.00 | $150.00 |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses (resold) 18 ea × $22.00 | 18 ea | $22.00 | $396.00 |
| Project: new-hire laptop setup and data transfer (outside agreement) 3 hr × $140.00 | 3 hr | $140.00 | $420.00 |
| After-hours: firewall firmware upgrade, Saturday 7 to 9am 2 hr × $210.00 | 2 hr | $210.00 | $420.00 |
| Hardware: business laptop, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, 3-year warranty 2 ea × $1,189.00 | 2 ea | $1,189.00 | $2,378.00 |
Agreement billed monthly in advance; out-of-scope and after-hours work billed in arrears. After-hours rate applies before 8am, after 6pm and on weekends. Sales tax on hardware is added where your state requires it and is left off this example. Net-15, or charged to the card on file.
Sent with Fee-Lion · example document, fictional client
How Fee-Lion fits
The parts that do the heavy lifting.
Agreements that bill themselves
The per-seat agreement is a recurring invoice. Change the seat count when users come and go, review the draft a few days early, and let auto-pay collect on the 1st.
More on invoicingOut-of-scope work on the same bill
Add the month's project hours, after-hours work at the higher rate, and hardware to the agreement invoice before it sends, each on its own line.
More on invoicingTime by the ticket
Run the timer against the client's project while you work a ticket, or log it afterward. Bill the unbilled hours in one move.
More on time trackingHardware and license costs
Record the distributor invoice for every laptop, switch and license as an expense tied to the client, so resale margin is visible.
More on expense tracking & bookkeepingProjects with checklists
Office moves, migrations and onboarding as projects with an estimate, a deposit and a shared checklist the office manager can follow.
More on project managementBlock-hours retainers
Sell a monthly bank of support hours. Technician time draws it down, unused hours roll over, overage bills at your rate, and the client sees their remaining hours in the portal.
More on retainers & hours banksProfit per project
Server swaps and migrations show invoiced revenue against hardware, licenses and labour at cost, with margin and effective hourly rate.
More on job profitability & budgetsA day with Fee-Lion
How it actually plays out.
- The 27th: November's agreement invoices draft themselves for every client. Calder & Weiss hired two people, so bump the seats from 16 to 18.
- Add last week's laptop setup hours from the timesheet and the Saturday firewall upgrade at the after-hours rate.
- The two laptops you ordered from the distributor go on as hardware lines, and the distributor invoice goes in as an expense against the client.
- The invoice sends on the 1st and auto-pay clears it. The office manager can open the itemized invoice from her link any time.
- Next spring's office move gets its own project: an estimate with a deposit, and a shared checklist for cabling, network, phones and cutover.
- Month end: revenue by client next to hardware and license costs shows which agreements are priced right.
Live demo
Click around Keystone IT.
A small managed IT provider: per-seat agreements on auto-pay, hourly and after-hours tickets, hardware resale with costs tracked, and an office-move project.
A real Fee-Lion workspace set up as Keystone IT, with sample clients, jobs, estimates and invoices. No signup, no password. Changes are switched off, so click anything.
Questions
What people ask before they switch.
How do managed service providers bill clients?
Most small MSPs bill a flat monthly fee per user or per device, invoiced in advance, and bill project work, after-hours work and hardware separately. In Fee-Lion the agreement is a recurring invoice and the extras are added as lines before it sends.
How much should I charge per user for managed IT?
It depends on what the agreement includes (helpdesk, security tools, backup, on-site visits) and your market. Price from your own tool costs and the hours a typical user needs each month, then check your margin per client in the reports after a few months.
Should I charge more for after-hours IT support?
Many IT providers bill after-hours and weekend work at 1.5 times their standard rate, and define the hours in the agreement. Put after-hours work on its own line at that rate so the client can see it.
How do I invoice for hardware I resell?
Add the device as a line on the client's invoice at your sell price, and record the distributor's invoice as an expense tied to that client so you can see the margin. Check your state's sales tax rules for hardware.
Can I update the number of users on a recurring invoice?
Yes. Edit the seat quantity on the recurring schedule or on the draft before it sends, and the total updates.
Your next invoice could go out tonight.
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