IT service desk
IT ticketing software, from the email to the invoice
OKTO PSA is IT ticketing software designed and hosted in Quebec for IT teams and MSPs. Every request becomes a support ticket tracked by a business-hour SLA, tied to the client’s asset and contract, and the time logged on it carries through to the invoice with GST and QST.
We mean support tickets here, the kind an IT team works through all day. Service desk, helpdesk, ticketing: the word changes from one team to the next, the need stays the same. Knowing who asked for what, who is on it and how long it took.
Shared mailbox, ticketing tool or PSA software: which one should you pick?
Almost every IT team starts with a shared support mailbox. It holds up until the day two technicians answer the same email, or nobody does. A ticketing tool fixes that problem. It does not always fix the contract and the invoice, and that is where PSA software comes in.
| Criterion | OKTOPSA | Shared mailbox | Ticketing tool alone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who owns the request | A ticket, an assigned agent, a status and a priority on every line. | Nothing shows it. People tell each other. | An assigned ticket, with its status. |
| Response timesTracking the SLA promised to the client. | Two business-hour clocks, paused while waiting on the client. | No clock. | Depends on the tool. (information not verified) |
| Time spent | Logged on the ticket, drawn from the hour bank. | Written down elsewhere, when someone remembers. | Depends on the tool. (information not verified) |
| Client assets | Workstations and servers tied to the client, the site and their tickets. | In a separate spreadsheet. | Depends on the tool. (information not verified) |
| Client portal | Tickets, hour balance, invoices to pay and quotes to sign. | None. The client writes and waits. | Depends on the tool. (information not verified) |
| Billing the time | Time becomes an invoice line, GST and QST computed. | Redone by hand in another program. | Depends on the tool, often in another program. (information not verified) |
| History per client | Complete and time-stamped, on the client record. | Scattered across everyone’s inbox. | Per ticket. |
| Hosting | In Quebec, one dedicated database per customer. | With your email provider. | Depends on the vendor. (information not verified) |
The two right-hand columns describe categories of tools, not a specific product. “Depends on the tool” means the point varies from one vendor to the next and should be checked with the one you are evaluating.
What should service desk software do in Quebec?
Six things, in our view, and they have to talk to each other. Each one ships in OKTO PSA; the product page has the full list, and the PSA software page for IT services shows the screens.
Tickets and team queues
Queues by team and by employee, with priorities, statuses and categories you name yourself. Several mailboxes can be monitored: an email becomes a ticket, a reply becomes a follow-up.
Business-hour SLAs
First-response and resolution targets follow each client’s calendar, its time zone and Quebec statutory holidays. The clock stops while you wait on the client and restarts when they answer.
Assets tied to tickets
The inventory of what you manage at the client’s, attached to the site and to tickets. Connected to OKTO RMM, the fleet updates without data entry: last contact, pending patches, warranty end.
Hour banks that draw down
Hour bank, per-device plan or hourly rate: every time entry knows which contract it falls under. The balance is visible before the client asks, and overage is invoiced in one click.
A portal for your clients
Your clients open their requests, follow progress, check their hour balance and pay their invoices online. They sign in with their Microsoft or Google account.
Time that reaches the invoice
Logged time becomes an invoice line with GST and QST, with no double entry. OKTO PSA does not replace your accounting software: it sends its invoices there, through QuickBooks.
The life of a ticket, from request to invoice
Six steps, in the same software. This is the path an ordinary support ticket follows at an MSP on a Tuesday morning.
- 01
The request comes in
An email in a monitored mailbox, a request opened in the portal or an alert from OKTO RMM. In all three cases, a ticket opens in the right team’s queue.
- 02
The ticket is picked up
It carries a priority, a status and a client. A technician clicks “Assign to me” and the client is notified. A critical ticket goes to the top of the queue.
- 03
The SLA clocks run
First response, then resolution, counted in business hours on the client’s calendar. While you wait for their answer, the clock stops.
- 04
The technician replies and logs time
Time is entered in the reply itself and drawn from the hour bank. Response templates are called up with a shortcut.
- 05
The ticket closes
A satisfaction survey goes out on its own at closing. The full, time-stamped history stays on the client record and on the asset involved.
- 06
Time becomes an invoice
What the plan covers stays covered. Overage is invoiced in one click, taxes computed, and the client pays online from the portal.
Tickets that come back every month, such as a licence renewal or a periodic check, are scheduled once and open on their own on the due date, in the right team’s queue.
If you turn on OKTHAV, the assistant built into OKTO PSA flags the tickets at risk of missing their deadline and suggests who should take them. Nothing runs without your approval.
Is it the right tool for your team?
Not for everyone. Here is who the product was designed for, and what it does not do.
An MSP of up to 30 people
Tickets, contracts, time and invoices in the same database, for $300 to $700 CAD a month depending on the user tier, CRM and HR included. Beyond 30 users, pricing is custom.
An in-house IT team
You get tickets, business-hour SLAs, the asset inventory and the portal. Contracts and invoicing are useful if you charge your hours back. If you do not, you simply leave them alone.
What it does not do
No knowledge base, no public API, no webhooks, no SAML. Reporting stops at a fixed dashboard and five CSV exports. If one of these is essential for you, better to know now.
You already have PSA software
We compared point by point in the HaloPSA comparison, the ConnectWise comparison and the Autotask comparison. Carrying over your tickets is done by our team, for a fixed fee.
Frequent questions
The questions we get asked
Your question is not here?
Write to us. A person in Trois-Rivières answers, within one business day.
Ask your questionIt is the tool that turns every IT support request into a ticket: a number, a client, a priority, a technician in charge and a history. It is also called a service desk or helpdesk. OKTO PSA is one, with contracts, time tracking and invoicing added on top.
A ticketing tool tracks requests and their deadlines. PSA software also tracks what comes after: the client’s contract, the hour bank, the time spent and the invoice. For an MSP, that is the difference between knowing a ticket is closed and knowing whether it was billed.
In business hours. Each ticket carries two clocks, first response and resolution, which follow the client’s calendar: its opening hours, its time zone and Quebec statutory holidays. The clock stops while you wait for the client’s answer and restarts when the client replies.
Yes. OKTO PSA monitors several inbound mailboxes, each routed to the right team. An incoming email becomes a ticket and a client reply becomes a follow-up on the same ticket. Clients can also open requests in the portal, and OKTO RMM alerts arrive in the same queue.
The price goes by user tier, not by seat: $300 a month for up to 10 users, $550 for 11 to 20, $700 for 21 to 30, and custom pricing beyond that. Amounts are in Canadian dollars, before GST and QST, and the CRM and HR are included.
In Quebec. Each OKTO PSA customer has its own database, never shared. Traffic goes through the Cloudflare protection network, and a backup copy is kept off site, in Canada. An encrypted daily backup is kept for 30 days, and an audit log shows who changed what and when.
No. OKTO PSA offers no knowledge base, no public API, no webhooks and no SAML. Its reporting stops at a fixed dashboard and five CSV exports. If internal documentation or custom reporting sits at the centre of your service desk, take that into account when choosing.
Watch a ticket make the whole trip.
We open a ticket in front of you, log time and produce the invoice. You judge on the evidence, with no commitment.
OKTO Solutions, Trois-Rivières, Quebec
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