IT Consulting: Time Tracking and Invoicing

IT consulting requires you to be diligent about time tracking and invoicing. Be sure to keep up with these business processes so you can be successful in your business of IT consulting.

As a new IT consulting business, it is important to learn about the most common mistakes made with time tracking and invoicing so you can avoid them.

Doing so will put your company in a better overall financial position. You will also be able to sleep better knowing you have greater financial control over your business.

Time Tracking, Billing and Other Issues

Time tracking, billing, invoicing and dealing with credit and collections are big issues in IT consulting. A lot of people wonder which software they should use for time tracking and billing. If you’re just focusing on that, you’re probably missing the bigger point here.

It’s a heck of a lot more important than the software you use. Of course you should use a piece of software that makes it a little easier to do your IT consulting job, but the software is not going to fix the underlying problems.

Your Service Gives IT Consulting Clients Peace of Mind

Steady clients will perceive your IT consulting business as an insurance policy. A steady client is motivated to pay your IT consulting business on time.

There’s a tremendous fear that if they forget to pay your invoices on time, when they have a network emergency, you’ll forget who they are. These are the clients you want to seek out.

Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

IT Consulting in Micro Small Businesses

IT consulting practices can be done by starting with microbusinesses. Gain confidence by realizing what software and hardware you need to know (and probably already do) to begin IT consulting.

Small business is a hot market for IT consulting. There are different sizes of small businesses and they all have different IT consulting needs. In this article you'll learn some items you should be familiar with in order to provide IT consulting to these businesses.

Micro Small Businesses Defined

Micro small businesses are companies that have anywhere from 1-10 computers; windows based in most cases. Usually these companies employ 1-10 people. Revenue (in U.S. dollars) will typically be anywhere from $100,000 up to about a million or so.

The big differentiator in micro small businesses from others, as far as IT consulting is concerned, is that they have no dedicated server yet. They may be running a peer to peer system and that’s the major reason they are bringing you in there.

Don't have a “crisis of confidence”. Many people, when first entering IT consulting are not sure if their skills are strong enough. But most people will find that they are at least capable of working with at least micro small businesses as a starting point.

Micro Small Business: What Hardware You Need for IT Consulting

You need to know about basic desktop PC support, notebooks, PDAs like palm based PDAs and windows cd based PDAs, printers, how to set up servers and dial up modems, DSL, cable modems a little bit about how to set up surge protection, data line protection, and entry level battery back up units.

Software Requirements for Micro Business IT Consulting

You need to be reasonably familiar with the most popular desktop and notebook operating systems out there. But mainly just the basic Microsoft Windows flavors on the desktop and the desktop’s of notebooks and a little bit on PDAs.

Micro businesses are also looking for a lot of very heavy desktop office automation applications support, basic PC support, basic notebook support, the whole Microsoft Office family, Intuits Quickbooks the accounting software is very popular, the Best Software’s ACT software for management is also really popular.

Copyright MMI-MMVI, PC Support Tips .com. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

IT Consulting: Identifying Sweet Spot Clients

IT consulting is a great match for sweet spot businesses. Know where to find sweet spot business customers, and you'll make a good living in IT consulting.

If you want to make a decent living and have a good, strong, sustainable IT consulting business, sooner or later you are going to come to this conclusion that the sweet spot of small businesses is the place to be.

You need to know where to look and how to verify that the small business you are pursuing is going to be gratifying enough to work with and lucrative enough of recurring revenue to make them a good sweet spot client.

How Do You Recognize a Sweet Spot Client?

Sweet spot IT consulting clients are no more than a 30-50 minute drive of your IT consulting home base. This way you can gets lots of face time with them. You can also get there quickly if there's an emergency. You don't want to spend a lot of time driving around and sitting in traffic.

Even if you are charging for travel time or charging a service fee or a van fee, driving time is not your most profitable IT consulting time.

How Do You Find Local Sweet Spot Businesses?

You can certainly rent direct mail lists that are in that geographic range 0-50 miles, or 0-80 kilometers. Or you can join some local organizations that are within a half hour to an hour of your location.

How Big Are The Sweet Spot IT Consulting Clients?

Sweet spot IT consulting clients have from 10-50 computers, 10-100 employees, a million to 10 million in sales. And of course, you can rent direct mail lists with at least part of that criteria filled and selected.

Another big thing to find a sweet spot IT consulting client is that they will have a relationship with a local accounting firm or other trusted business advisors. You want to position your consulting firm to be a trusted business advisor of theirs.

Sweet Spot Businesses are Well Connected

Most of these sweet spot IT consulting clients have relationships with other trusted business advisors on an outsource basis. They have a relationship with a local attorney, a local accounting firm, a local consulting firm a local advertising agency and a graphic designer. They know the value of those kinds of relationships.

If you want to get in with companies that already have great relationships with sweet spot businesses, you should be looking at networking with these businesses, a local accounting firm for example.

Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101 Blog. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}