Managed IT Service Agreement Template: What Each Schedule Holds

The master agreement carries the term, notice period, liability cap and data handling, so nothing in it changes when a customer adds a laptop or drops a firewall. Schedules absorb that churn. Keep the master lean.

A single change form signed by both sides amends any schedule, so the liability cap stays closed when a new starter joins payroll or a switch retires. Nobody guesses which clause applies.

Number every schedule and quote that number on each invoice line, so a customer who queries a charge sees which schedule produced it. Disputes end quickly.

Write each service as something you can count: per managed user, per endpoint, per server, per firewall, per backup set and per mailbox. Uncounted services cannot be invoiced. Count first, price second.

State the delivery hours beside each unit, because weekday helpdesk from eight to six, Sunday night patch windows and all day RMM monitoring are three separate promises. An alert may wait until morning. Say so.

Name the tools the customer will see, from the ticket portal and remote access agent to the backup console and the weekly patch report. Few customers read this part. It still settles many later arguments.

Define priority by business effect rather than caller volume: a server down for the office is priority one, while a printer queue on one desk is priority four. Put these examples in the schedule.

Each tier needs a response time, a resolution target and a rule for when the clock starts, stops and pauses while you wait on the customer. That pause clause prevents the most disputes. Write it in plain words and test it on a sample ticket that waited three days for a customer reply before you sign.

Attach service credits only if your PSA can report time to first response by priority from ticket data, because credits you cannot measure turn into arguments. Fix reporting first, then promise credits.

Every managed device and user goes on this list with a name, serial number, location, owner and start date, and a stale list leaks revenue. Treat the list as live.

Agree how additions and removals work, since some providers bill from the first day of the month after the change while others prorate by the day. Name the approvers at the customer who may request additions, since an intern asking for ten new mailboxes is a billing event that someone must invoice.

Reconcile the list monthly against the RMM console, the Microsoft licence portal and the backup vendor’s dashboard, because each can reveal a device nobody mentioned. Unlisted devices are unbilled work. A device that reports in but has no start date on the schedule is the usual leak, so run this check before every invoice run leaves the building.

Exclusions are not negative. They are the price list for project work: structured cabling, office moves, new server builds, line of business application support and escalations to the broadband carrier.

Beside each exclusion, write how it is quoted, whether as an hourly rate, a fixed project fee or a separate statement of work signed before anyone orders hardware. Known routes get taken.

Test the template against three recent invoices and check that every line traces to a schedule, because a line that does not trace needs a clause or a conversation.