Automating billing as an MSP: how to complete the puzzle between purchase and invoice

In brief

• The leak sits between purchase and sales. Services you purchase do not always end up fully or correctly on the customer invoice. That directly affects your margin.
• Your PSA and bookkeeping do not solve this. They register and post, but do not verify whether the purchase invoice matches what you sell per customer.
• You do not have to switch. Purchasing control can run as a separate module on top of your existing systems.
• The financial impact is concrete. A margin leak of two to five percent adds up considerably on an annual basis, while automation saves up to 80 percent of the checking time.

What you'll find in this guide

This guide runs through the parts that are most relevant for management and finance. Jump to the chapter that fits your situation.

• What do you buy in but fail to pass on?
• Why your PSA and bookkeeping do not close the gap
• Control without throwing your systems overboard
• The ecosystem as the foundation for scalable growth
• What it ultimately delivers for management and the CFO
• Frequently asked questions

What do you buy in but fail to pass on?

The core of the problem is simple to state and hard to monitor: is everything you purchase from your suppliers actually invoiced to the right customer? In practice, that is often not the case.

An MSP purchases services and licences from a range of parties. Think of Microsoft licences, security services, connectivity, telephony and cloud solutions. Those supplier invoices change constantly. Users are added, services are upgraded, prices change and subscriptions end. On the sales side, all those changes then have to reach the customer correctly. That is precisely where room for errors arises.

A small MSP often knows perfectly well that a new employee has started at a customer or that new laptops have just been delivered. The only question is whether every service on the supplier invoice is also passed on to the right customer by the administration. Often the internal communication and the record-keeping are less well organised there. And it is not a matter of bad intent, but of volume and complexity that outpace manual control.

The most dangerous discrepancies are not the big one-off errors, but the small recurring ones. A rate that is half a euro per user too high or too low goes unnoticed, but across two hundred customers it adds up to a structural amount per year. Do you want to know which discrepancies occur most often? Then read how to detect discrepancies in supplier invoices.

Why your PSA and bookkeeping do not close the gap

Many management teams think they have already covered this because they use a PSA and their invoices are neatly in the bookkeeping. That is an understandable assumption, but it is incorrect. A PSA registers that a customer has a Microsoft 365 subscription, but does not compare Microsoft's purchase invoice with that subscription. A bookkeeping system posts the invoice from your telecom supplier, but does not check whether the invoiced usage matches the active services per customer.

That gap between registering and verifying is exactly where margin leaks away. Invoice processing records an invoice administratively. Purchasing control goes a step further and substantively checks whether the costs match what was agreed and delivered, per customer and per service. It is a separate layer with its own function. How that triangular model works is explained in the article on the difference between purchasing control, a PSA and a bookkeeping system.

Control without throwing your systems overboard

MSPs have usually deliberately chosen a particular bookkeeping package, ticketing system or PSA solution. You do not simply abandon that, and you do not need to. The gain lies not in replacing but in connecting. With purchasing control as a separate module, you keep sight of the payment flows while your existing way of working stays intact.

This is set up deliberately. Especially at the top of the market there are organisations with tightly organised processes that it is not realistic to part with. Whether a company operates independently or is part of a private equity group with a buy-and-build strategy: the need for control remains. The large projects are usually implemented well, but it is precisely the changes that are poorly tracked. And with five percent of changes on a million in purchasing costs, that adds up quickly.

Smaller MSPs recognise this too, although the price of a full package plays a role more often there. For them, a separate module is a logical entry point. If it works well and demonstrably brings in money, the step to the full suite is much smaller later on. Do you want to see what the full chain from order to bookkeeping looks like? Then take a look at how to automate billing from order to bookkeeping.

The ecosystem as the foundation for scalable growth

MSPs rarely work with a single supplier or a single central system. Every extra data source makes the billing process more vulnerable. That is why the ecosystem you connect with is so decisive. ResalePartners has more than 110 integrations with suppliers and platforms, from telecom parties such as KPN, Dstny, Gamma and RoutIT to software vendors such as Microsoft 365 and distributors such as Pax8, TD Synnex and Ingram Micro. PSA tools such as HaloPSA, Autotask and ConnectWise and bookkeeping packages such as Exact Online are included too.

For management this is relevant for two reasons. First, you do not have to build and maintain a connection anew for every supplier. The various data streams are processed within a single process, which makes automation simpler and more scalable. Second, it safeguards your independence: you are not tied to a single ecosystem and can change your supplier mix without switching platforms.

This makes a difference above all for MSPs that grow through acquisitions and therefore have to deal with new suppliers, contract types and administrations. The platform then also acts as a marketplace, where you easily connect to new providers. Why separate supplier portals structurally fall short is something you can read in the piece on why Excel and standalone tools fall short.

What it ultimately delivers for management and the CFO

The bottom line comes down to three things: margin, time and peace of mind. Non-invoiced services directly affect the margin. According to ResalePartners, structural purchasing control delivers a revenue improvement that can quickly rise to two percent, while a margin leak of two to five percent easily persists without monitoring. On a million in revenue that is no detail.

In addition, there is the time saved. Many MSPs spend one or more working days each month collecting, checking and correcting billing data. Automation saves up to 80 percent of that. That time can go back into service delivery, customer relationships and innovation, precisely in a market where technical and financial profiles are scarce.

And then there is the peace of mind. A small MSP does not want to knock on a customer's door afterwards with the message that a year of forgotten licences still needs to be paid for. When margin is no longer an estimate at the end of the month but a continuously visible figure, billing shifts from an administrative burden to a strategic steering instrument. Exactly what you want as management. How much you are currently missing out on is something you can calculate in the overview of what revenue leakage costs you on an annual basis.

Discover in 30 minutes where your margin is leaking

Schedule a free demo of InkoopControle. Bring a few purchase invoices and, based on your own supplier mix, our specialists will show you where discrepancies arise and how to resolve that structurally. No obligation, but immediate insight.

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