Billing emerges from the bookings
When logging, the employee selects the project, the ticket or the maintenance contract. The invoice emerges from this by itself, without manual rework.
ERP software for IT service providers: every hour assigned to the right contract.
IT service providers work on projects, maintenance contracts and support tickets every day. teamspace posts every logged hour where it belongs, so that no billable work is left lying around at the end of the month.
Delivered, not billed
At the end of the month you are missing revenue you delivered long ago.
- The quick fix after go-live lands in no contract and never appears on an invoice.
- In a fixed-price project, unseen extra effort eats the margin, visible only at close.
- The maintenance retainer has long been used up, but no one switched over to time-and-materials.
- Support hours live in the ticket tool, the invoice in accounting, and time is lost in between.
teamspace captures exactly this work and makes it billable, instead of letting it disappear between the ticket tool and accounting.
Scope of functions
Billing does not begin only when you write the invoice.
Anyone running projects, support and maintenance contracts in parallel needs more than invoice creation. What ends up on the invoice is decided beforehand, with every single hour.
Retainer and extra effort cleanly separated
What is covered by the retainer in the maintenance contract and what goes beyond it are separated automatically by the assignment rules. So the extra effort is billed instead of disappearing unnoticed.
Projects, support and maintenance on one base
Onboarding, maintenance and support work with the same data. Switching between four tools is gone.
Start
Ready to go in a few days.
We import master and project data from Excel or your previous tools, including your maintenance contracts, hourly rates and SLA agreements. The basic setup takes a few days, with a personal contact from the customer success team supporting you.
One hour, three paths
Every hour lands with the contract it belongs to.
The same hour can belong to a project, a maintenance contract or a ticket. teamspace assigns it via the category, and the contract decides whether it is covered by the retainer or billed by time-and-materials.
Gebuchte Stunde
2:00 h
Anbindung beim Kunden getestet · K. Berger
Rubrik abrechenbar landet auf
Projekt
Festpreis oder nach Aufwand
fließt in die Nachkalkulation PRJ-2026-114
Wartungsvertrag
pauschal bis zum Kontingent
Stundenkontingent 34 / 40 h
Überlauf nach Aufwand
Ticket mit SLA
Service-Zeit am Ticket
minutengenau abgerechnet SLA-Restzeit läuft
Eine Buchung, der richtige Vertrag, kein Zusammensuchen am Monatsende.
Where it fits
Why not pure project software?
Pure project software
- Plans and steers the project, but ends at go-live
- Maintenance, tickets and SLA live in a second tool
- Recurring billing by hand, new every month
- The hour after go-live stays without a contract
teamspace
- Project and ongoing operations in one system
- Maintenance contract, ticket and SLA in the same logic
- Recurring invoice via standing contracts
- Even the hour after go-live is captured and billed
Seen in the system
This is what a client project looks like in teamspace.
Main project, subproject, work package, phase and milestone map every IT project. Developers log their hours onto the work packages, progress shows at every node, from discovery to go-live.
1 Main project 2 Subproject 3 Work package 4 Phase 5 Milestone
Structure Timeline Roles
PRJ-2026-014 · Work breakdown structure
Customer portal · Relaunch
Discovery
Capture requirements
Delivery
Backend services
Frontend views
Go-live
Project time logging
Hours land on the work package, not on a note.
The project emerges from the confirmed order: order items become subprojects and work packages, hourly rates and billing type are fixed from the start. Developers log their time directly onto the work package, in the browser or in the app.
- Logging onto project, phase or work package, every hour billable or internal by its category.
- Plan-vs-actual per phase emerges from the logged hours, not from a second list.
- The structure becomes the billing: the same bookings carry the invoice, the proof and the margin.
“Staff in both support and project planning can see orders and invoices. That was not possible before.”
What IT service providers gain
Contract, service and margin under control.
Project and operations on one base: every piece of work cleanly billed, every ticket with a promised response time, and the margin visible before the project closes.
Contract
What is logged also gets billed.
Log hours onto a project, ticket or maintenance contract, each with the category billable or non-billable.
- Logging onto project, ticket or maintenance contract
- Category separates billable from non-billable
- Retainer and time-and-materials on one order
Service
Tickets with a promised response time.
Requests become tickets, the SLA stored in the CRM shows the remaining time as a traffic light.
- SLA per customer, automatically on the ticket
- Remaining time as a traffic light, warning before the deadline
- Service time billed to the minute or by retainer
Margin
The margin stands before the project closes.
Plan-vs-actual and post-calculation per order show the margin day-fresh, not only at the quarterly close.
- Plan-vs-actual day-fresh per project
- Post-calculation: order against project actuals against invoice
- Contribution margin from hours and rates automatically
The path of a piece of work
From quote to paid invoice.
An end-to-end path, without exporting between four tools: the quote becomes a project, the logged hours become the invoice.
- 1
Quote and order
The accepted quote becomes an order with a click, the order becomes a project with structure and hourly rates.
- 2
Project and operations
The team logs hours onto the project, onto maintenance tickets or the maintenance contract, each billable or not by its category.
- 3
Plan-vs-actual day-fresh
Plan-vs-actual day-fresh per project, the consumption of the hour budget visible; warning levels alert before the effort runs out of hand.
- 4
Approval and invoice
Reviewed hours, retainers and maintenance budgets flow into the invoice, the activity record emerges automatically alongside it.
- 5
Post-calculation
After close, teamspace compares order, project actuals and invoice, so the next calculation becomes more reliable.
Service level
Every request becomes a ticket, the response time runs along.
Many IT service providers live, alongside the project, on ongoing operations: maintenance, support, small changes. Requests come in by email, by phone or via a web form and are bundled in the ticket system as tickets under one case number.
- SLA per customer or ticket: the SLA stored in the CRM assigns itself to new tickets automatically, the remaining time runs along as a traffic light, coloured by urgency.
- Office hours set when the SLA clock runs; at night and at the weekend it stands still.
- Escalation releases a ticket left lying or switches the channel, before a customer waits.
- Service time logged directly on the ticket and billed at period end.
The maintenance contract across the year
One maintenance contract, read across the whole year.
Maintenance and service retainers are the quiet backbone of many IT firms. In teamspace a maintenance retainer runs as a standing contract: the hour budget is covered by the retainer, the overflow is billed by time-and-materials via the eight assignment rules, and the contract renews automatically. So the recurring invoice emerges every month, without anyone switching over by hand.
Wartungsvertrag · Müller GmbH
Serienvertrag · monatlich
28 h 20 h
JanFebMärAprMaiJunJulAugSepOktNovDez
Pauschale läuft jeden Monat als Serienvertrag
verlängert automatisch
Pauschal gedeckt 185 h / Jahr
Überlauf nach Aufwand 10 h / Jahr
One contract across twelve months, every hour cleanly separated between retainer and time-and-materials.
Initial call
Let us work through one of your maintenance contracts.
Bring along a typical maintenance contract. In the initial call you see how the invoice emerges from retainer, overflow and project hours, and where your contract logic is mapped.
Target group
Which IT service providers get the most out of this.
teamspace suits firms that deliver and then operate, without trading in third-party hardware or licences. Four profiles we see especially often.
Software development
Anyone developing or rolling out software works on the project at a fixed price or time-and-materials and then looks after operations. Success is decided by whether the extra effort becomes visible before the project closes.
Braucht besonders
- Fixed price and time-and-materials cleanly separated in the same project
- Support and upkeep after go-live without a second tool
- Plan-vs-actual per phase, before the margin tips
- Post-calculation as the basis for the next quote
teamspace runs development projects with plan-vs-actual per work package, logs later support onto the same order and compares order, project actuals and invoice in the post-calculation.
Managed services and maintenance
Managed services live on the recurring retainer and the hour budget. The art is seeing the moment when the budget tips and time-and-materials begins.
Braucht besonders
- Maintenance contracts with hour budget and overflow by time-and-materials
- Tickets with SLA remaining time and escalation
- Recurring invoice via standing contracts
- Consumption of the budget visible before it is used up
teamspace separates retainer and time-and-materials automatically via the assignment rules, carries the retainer forward as a standing contract and shows the SLA remaining time on the ticket as a traffic light.
Hosting and cloud operations
In hosting and cloud operations, many small, recurring pieces of work run alongside the projects. They have to hang cleanly off the customer and the contract, otherwise they get lost.
Braucht besonders
- Ongoing operations and project work on one base
- Self-service portal for customers
- Browser- and app-based, Microsoft Teams connection possible
- Service time logged on the ticket and billed
teamspace brings operations and project together, opens a self-service portal for customers' tickets and bills the service time directly on the ticket.
IT consulting and advisory
Technical consultancies deliver concept and implementation, often in the same engagement, and with a regulated customer the follow-on engagement hangs on the proof. Success is decided by whether every hour carries its expertise and holds up in the audit.
Braucht besonders
- Fixed-price concept and time-and-materials implementation on one order
- Scheduling by available expertise, not by grade
- Activity record automatically, locked for the audit
- XRechnung with routing ID for public-sector clients
teamspace cleanly separates the fixed-price concept from the time-and-materials implementation, schedules consultants by available expertise and builds the audit-proof activity record from the released hours as an attachment to the fee invoice.
Multiple engagements
Multiple engagements, one resource pool.
Growing IT service providers rarely deliver only one project; ten to fifty parallel engagements are the rule. teamspace schedules employees across all projects, with leave, sickness and contractual working time accounted for. The scheduling assistant filters by available expertise and flags conflicts across the engagements; the choice is made by the planner, not by an automatism.
A planned-versus-actual comparison per project shows day-fresh where the effort stands, with warning levels as soon as it runs out of plan. More on capacity planning and multi-project management.
Comparison
Silo tools versus teamspace.
Where an end-to-end system differs from Excel, a separate ticket tool and stand-alone accounting.
Feature
Excel, ticket tool, accounting
teamspace
Recommended Hour logged directly on the ticket
manual
Retainer and time-and-materials on one order
Maintenance as a recurring invoice
manual
SLA remaining time as a traffic light, with escalation
Plan-vs-actual and post-calculation per project
Activity record automatically with the invoice
manual
ZUGFeRD and XRechnung without an extra tool
Hosting in the ISO-27001 data centre in Frankfurt
varies
Initial call
We look at your contracts and tickets.
Show us a maintenance contract and a fixed-price project. We show where teamspace captures the unpaid hours and where your current setup is enough.
Scope of functions
Functions for IT service providers.
Included in the plan, without a module surcharge.
Project and billing
- Time logging onto project, ticket or maintenance contract
- Category billable or non-billable per booking
- Fixed price, time-and-materials and retainer on one order
- Plan-vs-actual and post-calculation per project
- Eight assignment rules for retainer plus time-and-materials
Service and operations
- Service desk with channels from email, phone and web
- SLA per customer, remaining time as a traffic light with escalation
- Maintenance contracts with hour budget and overflow
- Recurring invoice via standing contracts
- Self-service portal for customer tickets
Billing and security
- Activity record automatically as an attachment to the invoice
- ZUGFeRD and XRechnung without an extra tool
- Certified interface to DATEV Unternehmen online
- GoBD mode, audit-proof over ten years
- Hosting in the ISO-27001-certified data centre in Frankfurt
Why teamspace
What stands behind the software.
From Darmstadt since 1999
We have been developing teamspace since 1999 in Darmstadt, self-financed and without outside capital. Over 80 IT companies work with it every day.
One application instead of silo tools
Project, ticket, time and invoice access the same stock, no export between four tools.
Personal service
A dedicated contact from the customer success team supports you from onboarding through to operations, with German support that knows your contracts.
Case Study
From tool chaos to the cleanly billed hour.
Hypothetical practical example to illustrate how it works. Specific values depend on the starting situation, sector and implementation and are not guaranteed. A typical switchover scenario: an IT service provider with 40 employees who rolls out projects and then runs maintenance and support, with separate tools for tickets, hours and invoices.
Starting point
Tickets ran in a support tool, hours in a time-tracking app, invoices in accounting. At the end of the month someone gathered the maintenance hours from notes. Part of the work after go-live never appeared on an invoice, and on the fixed-price project the margin showed only at close.
Solution
Hours are now logged directly onto a project, ticket or maintenance contract, each with its category. The maintenance retainer runs as a standing contract, the overflow goes automatically by time-and-materials. Plan-vs-actual and post-calculation show the margin per project day-fresh, the activity record emerges with the invoice.
1
system instead of five separate tools
0
hours without an assigned contract
Plan-vs-actual live
margin visible, not only at the quarterly close
From the hour to the invoice
The invoice emerges from reviewed hours.
At the end of the week or period the project manager releases the hours. From the released, billable hours, the retainers and the maintenance budgets, the invoice emerges, without an intermediate export.
- Release per project or period: first reviewed, then locked, then billable.
- Activity record automatically with every invoice that settles the times, as an attachment for the customer.
- ZUGFeRD and XRechnung emerge without an extra tool, the hand-over to DATEV runs via the certified interface.
Security
Customer data stays in Frankfurt.
The projects and tickets of an IT service provider hold sensitive things: access credentials, infrastructure, the solution path to a problem. teamspace processes this data exclusively in the EU.
- Hosting in an ISO-27001-certified data centre in Frankfurt am Main. It is the data centre that is certified, not teamspace itself.
- GDPR compliant with a data processing agreement; encryption via TLS, storage in the data centre encrypted.
- In GoBD mode released invoices and receipts are kept audit-proof over ten years.
- The contracting party is 5 POINT AG, a German public limited company headquartered in Darmstadt.
What software for IT service providers must do
Project and operations on one data base.
An ERP software for IT service providers, often also called software for IT service providers, ERP for professional services firms, service management or IT service management software, brings the one-off project and the ongoing operations afterwards together in one data stock. It ensures that every hour is assigned to the matching contract, whether project, maintenance contract or ticket, and that from the billable hours, retainers and maintenance budgets the invoice emerges at the end of the month. Internationally this category is called PSA software, short for Professional Services Automation.
The difference from pure project software lies in operations: maintenance contracts with retainer and time-and-materials, tickets with a promised response time and recurring billing belong to it, not just delivery. Materials management and warehousing are deliberately left out, teamspace is leaner than a classic ERP from production and trade. Anyone who also trades hardware and licences alongside the work will find that in the systems house software.
Technical IT consultancies fall under this too: they deliver concept and implementation, often in the same engagement, and with a regulated customer they need the audit-proof activity record. teamspace schedules them by available expertise and bills fixed price and time-and-materials on one order, the same software for service providers that brings project and operations together on one data base.
More from project and operations
What borders on the project and service business.
Six areas go deeper into individual questions around service, billing and steering.
Service desk software
Tickets with channels, SLA traffic light and escalation, service time billed directly.
Learn moreSLA management
Response time per customer, remaining time as a traffic light, escalation before the deadline.
Learn moreOrder billing software
Retainer, time-and-materials and maintenance on one order, with post-calculation.
Learn moreProject controlling software
Plan-vs-actual, forecast and margin day-fresh from the logged hours.
Learn moreProject management
Project structure, plan-vs-actual and contribution margin per project.
Learn moreMulti-project management
Multiple engagements in parallel, availabilities and conflicts in one view.
Learn moreRelated modules
Three modules the service business hangs on.
Behind every bill stand the logged hour, the invoicing and the customer with their terms. These three modules mesh directly with one another.
Time tracking online
The logged hour is the basis of the invoice and of the planned-versus-actual comparison.
Read moreInvoicing software
Receipts, dunning and e-invoicing: the invoicing around project and maintenance.
Read moreCRM software
Customer, SLA and terms sit on the contact, shared instead of maintained twice.
Read moreTerms
Six terms from the everyday of the IT service provider.
Terms that come up again and again in project and operations.
- Maintenance contract
- An ongoing contract with a fixed hour budget per period. Used time is covered by the retainer, the overflow is billed by time-and-materials.
- SLA
- Service level agreement, a promised response time per customer or ticket. The remaining time is shown on the ticket as a traffic light.
- Billability
- The category of a time booking, which sets whether an hour is billed or not. Both stay separately analysable.
- Standing contract
- An order that bills recurrently, such as a monthly maintenance retainer, with automatic renewal.
- Post-calculation
- The comparison of order, actual project actuals and issued invoice. It shows the real margin of a project.
- Managed service
- The ongoing operations at the customer for a recurring retainer, often with SLA and hour budget.
Further sectors
Solutions for other professional services firms.
teamspace comes for five sectors. Here are the four alongside the IT service providers.
Management consulting
Days of clever minds, utilisation across teams and fee invoicing.
Industry pageSystems house
IT service provider with trade: hardware and licences alongside the work.
Industry pageAn honest placement
Which IT service providers teamspace suits, and which not.
Less of a fit
- Pure hardware and licence trade with warehouse and stock.
- Production and manufacturing with bills of materials and materials management.
- Pure product firms without project or service business at the customer.
- Single workstation without a team, tickets or time proof.
A good fit
- IT service providers that deliver projects and then take on maintenance, support and operations.
- Firms with maintenance contracts of retainer and time-and-materials and tickets with a promised response time.
- Teams with several parallel engagements, from the firm of ten to several hundred employees.
- Service providers that want to assign every hour to the right contract and see the margin day-fresh.
Frequently asked questions on ERP software for IT service providers
Do we still need our own ticket tool if we use teamspace?
In most IT service providers teamspace replaces the separate ticket tool. The service desk takes in requests from email, phone and a web service, assigns them to responsibility via channels and connects them with SLA, project and invoice. Tickets, hours and billing thus sit in one system.
How do the maintenance retainer and time-and-materials work in parallel?
Per maintenance contract an hour budget can be stored. Time that runs into it is covered by the retainer; what goes beyond it is billed by time-and-materials via the assignment rules. Both stand on the same order, the invoice at period end consolidates it.
How does a support hour after go-live end up on the invoice?
The time logged on the ticket runs onto the customer's linked project or maintenance contract, with the category billable. From this an individual or collective invoice emerges, with the right rates and automatic surcharges. So no service hour is left lying between the ticket tool and accounting.
Do we see the margin before a fixed-price project is closed?
Yes. teamspace compares plan and actual per project day-fresh and computes the contribution margin from logged hours, internal rates and costs. Warning levels alert when the effort runs out of hand. After close, the post-calculation compares order, project actuals and invoice.
Can we connect teamspace with GitLab, GitHub or Azure DevOps?
Via the REST API, tickets and cases can be exchanged with other systems. teamspace does not come with a ready plug-in connection to these tools; specific requirements we clarify in the initial call.
How does teamspace handle e-invoicing and DATEV?
teamspace creates and receives ZUGFeRD and XRechnung without an extra tool. The certified interface to DATEV Unternehmen online transfers invoices directly into the DATEV cloud, without a CSV file. For Lexware or Sage there is no direct interface, there the hand-over runs via standard export.
What about ISO 27001 and compliance?
teamspace runs in an ISO-27001-certified data centre in Frankfurt am Main, GDPR compliant and with a data processing agreement. It is the data centre that is certified, not teamspace itself. Data is processed exclusively in the EU, released receipts can be kept audit-proof in GoBD mode.
What is meant by ERP software for IT service providers?
An ERP software for IT service providers maps the project business and ongoing operations in one system. It brings hours, tickets, maintenance contracts and billing together on one data stock, instead of maintaining them in separate tools. Internationally this category is also called PSA software (Professional Services Automation).
How does this differ from pure project software?
IT service providers have, alongside the project, the ongoing operations: maintenance contracts, support tickets and recurring billing. Pure project software does not map this. teamspace brings maintenance with retainer and time-and-materials, tickets with SLA and standing contracts, alongside the classic project work.
Is teamspace also suitable for small IT service providers?
Yes. teamspace can be introduced in stages and grows with you. You start with the modules that count today, usually project, ticket, time and invoice, and add CRM or contract management later, without data migration.
Is teamspace a classic ERP or sector-specific?
Sector-specific for IT service providers with project and service business. Leaner than a classic ERP from production and warehousing, but with project, service and contract billing in one logic. Materials management and manufacturing are deliberately not the focus.
Is teamspace also suitable for IT consultancies?
Yes. IT consultancies deliver concept and implementation, often in the same engagement, and prove their hours to the regulated customer. teamspace separates the fixed-price concept and time-and-materials implementation on one order, schedules consultants by available expertise rather than only by grade, and builds the activity record automatically from the released hours, locked and as an attachment to the fee invoice.
Initial call
ERP for IT service providers, reviewed in 15 minutes.
In 15 to 30 minutes we discuss your contracts, tickets and billing. You hear a clear assessment of whether teamspace fits your project and service business.