Why I Started a PSA Consulting Firm (And What I've Seen So Far)

I didn't set out to start a PSA consulting firm. That wasn't the plan. The plan was just to be good at the work, keep getting better, and figure out the business part later. PaxRig happened because I kept seeing the same problems over and over, and it became clear that most MSPs don't have access to the kind of specialized help they actually need.

Let me explain.

The pattern I couldn't unsee

After spending years working inside MSP operations — configuring PSA platforms, building integrations, fixing billing configurations, debugging workflow rules — I noticed something. Every MSP I worked with had the same fundamental problems, and they were all suffering from those problems for the same fundamental reason.

The problems: billing leakage that nobody could quantify. Workflow automation that didn't exist or didn't work. Reporting that didn't tell them anything useful. Techs who resented the PSA instead of relying on it. Manual processes everywhere that should have been automated years ago.

The reason: nobody inside the MSP had the bandwidth, the expertise, or the mandate to properly configure and maintain the platform that runs their entire operation.

Think about how absurd that is for a second. The PSA is the single most important operational system in an MSP. Every ticket, every time entry, every agreement, every invoice, every SLA — it all flows through the PSA. And at most MSPs, the person responsible for keeping that system healthy is someone who also has a full-time job doing something else. They're a tech who happened to be around during the initial setup. Or a service manager who inherited the admin login. Or the owner who configured it themselves during the early days and hasn't had time to touch it since.

No other industry would run their core operational system this way. You wouldn't expect your office manager to also be your accountant just because they happened to set up QuickBooks. But MSPs do exactly that with their PSA.

The gap in the market

When I started looking at the PSA consulting landscape, I expected to find a bunch of specialists doing exactly what I was doing. There are some — and some of them are quite good. But the gap was bigger than I anticipated.

Most of the firms offering "PSA consulting" are actually broader MSP business consultants who include PSA work as one piece of a larger engagement. They'll talk about your pricing strategy, your sales process, your marketing, and oh yeah, they'll also take a look at your ConnectWise setup. The PSA work is a side dish, not the main course.

That's fine if what you need is broad business coaching. But if your specific problem is that your ConnectWise agreements are leaking $6,000 a month in unbilled charges, you don't need someone to review your pricing strategy. You need someone who can open your agreement configuration, find the gaps, fix them, and make sure they stay fixed.

There's also a platform loyalty issue in the existing consulting landscape. Most PSA consultants specialize in one platform — usually ConnectWise, because that's where the largest install base is. Which means they can't give you honest, platform-agnostic advice about whether your frustrations warrant a migration or just better configuration. Their answer is always going to be biased toward the platform they know.

I work on both ConnectWise and HaloPSA. When someone asks me whether they should migrate or optimize, I can give them an answer based on their actual situation rather than which platform I have more experience with. Sometimes the answer is "optimize what you have." Sometimes it's "yeah, you should move." But the answer is always based on the merits, not my business model.

What PaxRig is (and isn't)

PaxRig is a hands-on PSA consulting firm for MSPs. I get into your PSA, figure out what's broken or underutilized, fix it, document it, and train your team to maintain it.

PaxRig is not a coaching practice. I don't sell frameworks or methodologies. I don't have a proprietary assessment matrix with a clever acronym. There's no masterclass, no certification program, no peer group with a quarterly conference.

There's nothing wrong with those things — some of them are genuinely valuable. They're just not what I do. What I do is technical configuration work. I open the PSA, read the data, understand the business processes, and build a configuration that matches. When the engagement is over, your PSA works better and your team knows how to keep it that way.

I'm also not trying to create dependency. The whole point of documentation and training is that you don't need me long-term. Some MSPs want ongoing support through a retainer, and I offer that. But every engagement is designed to end with the MSP owning the knowledge, not leasing it from me.

What I've seen so far

Since starting PaxRig, a few things have confirmed what I suspected and a few things have surprised me.

Confirmed: billing leakage is universal. I have not yet encountered an MSP whose billing configuration was 100% accurate. The gap varies — sometimes it's $800 a month, sometimes it's $12,000 — but it's always there. Agreement additions that don't reflect current counts. Work types with stale rates. Coverage rules that don't match current service definitions. It's the most consistent finding across every engagement.

Confirmed: the PSA health check is the right starting point. Almost every client who starts with a health check converts to a follow-on engagement. Not because I pitch them — because the health check shows them, with specific numbers, where the problems are and what they're costing. When you can put a dollar figure on configuration debt, the business case for fixing it makes itself.

Surprised: how emotional the PSA conversation is. I expected PSA consulting to be a purely technical conversation. It's not. MSP owners have years of frustration built up around their PSA. They feel guilty for not fixing it sooner. They feel angry at the vendor for making it so complicated. They feel anxious about the cost of addressing it. The technical work is the easy part. Managing the human side — reassuring people that the problems are fixable, that they're not unique, that there's a clear path forward — is just as important.

Surprised: how much demand there is for HaloPSA expertise. HaloPSA is growing fast, and the consulting ecosystem hasn't kept pace. MSPs adopting HaloPSA are finding that there aren't many people out there who can help with implementation and optimization. That gap is real, and it's a significant part of why PaxRig chose to support both platforms from day one.

What I think the MSP industry needs

More specialists. Not more generalists who dabble in everything, but specialists who go deep on specific operational domains. PSA configuration is one. RMM optimization is another. Security stack architecture. Billing and finance operations. These are all areas where focused expertise produces dramatically better results than general advice.

More honesty about what tools can and can't do. Every vendor overpromises during the sales process. Every product demo shows the ideal scenario. MSP owners deserve consultants who will tell them the truth: this platform is great at X and mediocre at Y, and here's what that means for your business.

More emphasis on configuration as a discipline. PSA configuration isn't a one-time setup task. It's an ongoing discipline, like maintaining your network infrastructure or keeping your documentation current. The MSPs that treat it as a discipline — with regular reviews, documented changes, and skilled people responsible for it — are the ones that get the most value from their investment.

That's what PaxRig is here to do. Not sell you a vision. Not coach you through a transformation. Just make your PSA work the way it should so you can focus on running your MSP.

If that sounds useful, I'd love to talk.

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Book a discovery call — 30 minutes, no pitch, no obligation. Just an honest conversation about where your PSA stands and what I can do about it.