Difference between the MSP and IT Department products

This article will outline the differences between the two products provided in Atera: MSP and IT Departments along with the differences between each product's plans.

If you are unsure what product best suits your needs, see Which Atera plan best suits my I.T. Business and needs?

• Product differences
• Plan differences for each product
  • MSP
  • IT Department

Product differences between MSP and IT Departments

Atera provides two products, one for Managed Service Provides, and the other for Internal IT Departments. Below you can find the main differences between the two products and in particular differences related to:

• Billing module 
• Reporting
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
• Organizing sites with Departments 
• Other minor differences 

Billing

The billing module is one of the main differences between the MSP product and the IT Department. The MSP version of Atera has a built-in billing option, that allows you to bill your customers based on the time worked on tickets, the products, and services that you are selling to your customers. The IT Department version of Atera will not have the billing module present in the dashboard.

MSP:

IT Department: 

Since the IT Department product does not have a billing module, you will not be able to:

• Create contracts
• Setup contract rates
• Use the Product & Expenses feature
• Create invoices and invoice batches
• Integrate your Atera account with Quickbooks or Xero

Reporting

As the IT Department product does not have a billing module, the following reports are not available (these reports will only be found on the MSP product):

• Customer Profitability
• Top Retainer Customers
• Bottom Retainer Customers
• Customer Periodic Report
• Products and Expenses
• Block Contracts Balance

Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Another difference between these products is how the SLA works. For the MSP version, the SLA is assigned to a contract and works based on the contract assigned to the tickets.

For the IT Department product, the SLA is assigned to the Site directly, with the option to have only one SLA per Site.

Departments

This is a feature that is available only for the IT Department product and helps you better organize your sites and users. For more information, see Add Departments (IT Departments)

You also have the option to use ticket automation rules based on the departments of the end users.

Minor Differences

There are also some minor differences between these products concerning terminology.

• The MSP's Customers are named Sites in the IT Department product
• The MSP's Contacts are named Users or Requesters in the IT Department product
• The MSP's Customer Portal becomes the Service Portal in the IT Department product.

Plan differences

Each product has three plans from which you can choose. You can see the pricing differences on our Pricing Page

MSP

The three plans of the MSP product are Pro, Growth, and Power. Below we have highlighted the main differences between these plans:

IT Department

The plans of the IT Department are Professional, Expert, and Master. The table below lists the main differences between these plans:

FAQ

Q: What is the difference between File Viewer and File Transfer?

A: With file viewer, you can only view the files on a device. File Transfer allows you to also transfer files from your device to the desired agent.

Q: How do you select which product to use, when creating your account?

A: This article, Atera's Free Subscription Trial, will show you the steps needed to create an account on either the MSP product or the IT Department version of Atera.