Overview
IT Edge is a regional managed service provider. It looks after just under 400 client organizations and just under 5,000 devices. Its monthly billing depends on knowing what each of those clients actually has: devices, users and licenses. Keeping those counts right is the job that sits between the service desk and the invoice, and for a long time it was a manual one.
The challenge: counts that depended on email
Before InventoryOS, every change at a client travelled the same route. When a device was added or retired, or a user or license changed, a help desk technician emailed the change in. Someone then updated a spreadsheet by hand, and at month-end that spreadsheet was reconciled against billing, client by client.
The process worked, but only as well as the emails behind it. A change that was never emailed never reached the spreadsheet, and a change that was emailed still had to be typed in correctly. Across just under 400 clients, reconciliation took about two days every month. It also left things behind: many clients had unused licenses and old devices that the earlier process never caught.
None of this was a failure of effort. It is what happens when the count of record lives in a spreadsheet that only changes when someone remembers to email it.
“Month-end used to take us about two days. Now it’s an hour or two, because by the time we sit down to reconcile, the counts are already there.”
Cybersecurity Manager, IT Edge
The approach: change reports, alongside the existing stack
IT Edge did not replace any of its core tools. InventoryOS works alongside the MSP’s RMM and PSA, keeping each client’s devices, users and licenses current in one place. The PSA integrations create tickets only. InventoryOS does not push billing, and invoicing stays in the MSP’s own systems.
The piece that changed month-end was the change report. Rather than waiting on emails, the MSP uses InventoryOS change reports to see what was added and removed for each client. Those reports replaced the chain of emailed changes and manual spreadsheet updates. IT Edge reads the change reports and carries the numbers into the billing process it already had.
What month-end looks like now
At month-end, the change reports show what was added and removed for each client. The billing side works from that list rather than checking a spreadsheet against a month of emails, and the result goes into the MSP’s existing invoicing. That shift is where the time went: from about two days of reconciliation to one to two hours.
Why it fits an existing month-end
Because InventoryOS sits next to the RMM and PSA rather than in place of them, the service desk and billing keep running in the tools the MSP already uses. What went away was the step that depended on someone remembering to send an email and someone else remembering to update a row. Month-end now starts from a report instead of from an inbox.
“The change reports keep our counts far more accurate than techs emailing changes in and someone updating a spreadsheet ever did.”
Cybersecurity Manager, IT Edge
The results
A shorter month-end
Month-end billing reconciliation that used to take about two days now takes one to two hours. The work has not disappeared, but it now starts from change reports instead of a spreadsheet that had to be pieced together from emails.
What the old process missed
Bringing its clients into InventoryOS showed that many of them had unused licenses and old devices that earlier processes had never caught. Those items had stayed invisible to a process that only knew about the changes someone thought to report.
More accurate counts
The MSP reports that the change reports keep its client counts far more accurate than the old routine of help desk technicians emailing changes and someone updating a spreadsheet. With counts kept current through the month, reconciliation becomes a review rather than a reconstruction.
“It turned up unused licenses and old devices at a lot of our clients that our old process never caught. And it runs alongside our RMM and PSA, so we didn’t have to replace anything to get there.”
Cybersecurity Manager, IT Edge
What other MSPs can take from it
IT Edge’s experience is one MSP’s result, not a guarantee. The pattern behind it is common, though: when client counts depend on technicians emailing changes and someone maintaining a spreadsheet, month-end takes longer than it should and some things slip through. Change reports can take over that job without replacing the RMM, the PSA or the way invoices go out.
Want to see how change reports and billing fit together? Read how service plans and billing reconciliation work in the MSP Portal, or why spreadsheets fall behind a live inventory.
About this case study. Figures are approximate, as reported by IT Edge from its own use of InventoryOS. Your results will vary. Screens show the InventoryOS demo account with sample data, not IT Edge’s or its clients’ data.