Why professional-services firms work with us
Knowledge-work firms have a specific IT profile: small headcount relative to revenue, expensive talent that is intolerant of friction, client-confidentiality obligations that vary engagement to engagement, and a need to look as professional in their tooling as they look in their client deliverables. A generic MSP serves a different shape of customer.
Our professional-services clients include 12-person accounting firms running quarter-end close on shared deliverable folders, 40-person marketing agencies juggling client-asset retention rules, mid-size architecture firms managing CAD-heavy workstations and licensing costs, and consulting practices whose entire IP is the documents and conversations they protect. The patterns repeat: minimize friction, maximize defensibility, keep the bill predictable.
What is included for professional-services firms
- Foundation The same operational base every customer starts with.
- 360SmartIT Department Endpoints, identity, helpdesk, MDM
- Client-confidential layer Knowledge-work-unique controls for partner-level accounts and client engagements.
- Sensitivity Labels Client-confidential content
- Managed-device policy On document libraries via Conditional Access
- Mailbox protection Partner-level accounts (always targeted)
- Wire-fraud training Client-impersonation + redirect patterns
- Engagement-tied retention Policies match client work lifecycle
- Risk-matched add-ons Layered on per the firm's exposure profile.
- 360CyberProtect MDR 24/7 SOC analyst coverage
- 360CloudBackupPro Lost laptop = 30-min, not 30-hour problem
- 360M365Backup Granular point-in-time restore
- 365 Security Reviews For the "do you have an infosec program" question
- Practice + engagement platforms Customer-owned platforms we run alongside, not as resellers.
- Practice management
- Time + billing
- Document repositories
- Client portals
- CRM
One stack, four tiers of obligation. The client-confidential layer is what turns 'general IT for an SMB' into 'IT for a professional-services firm.' Pro1 / Pro2 / Pro3 Master engineers cover the engagement work — incident response, billable-hour outage prevention — billed per minute only when authorized.
Every engagement starts with 360SmartIT Department — managed Windows + Mac endpoints, EDR, automated patching, full asset visibility, M365 administration (Sensitivity Labels for client-confidential content, Conditional Access enforcing managed-device policy on document libraries, mailbox protection for partner-level accounts as the highest-value targets, retention policies matched to client engagements), phishing simulation calibrated for client-impersonation and wire-transfer-fraud patterns, security awareness training that fits between billable hours, dark-web monitoring of partner emails, and unlimited AISA tickets. Layered on top, the components that match knowledge-work obligations:
- 360CyberProtect MDR — 24/7 SOC oversight with human analysts.
- 360CloudBackupPro — endpoint backup so a lost laptop is a half-hour problem instead of a half-day one, ransomware-resilient by design.
- 360M365Backup — daily Exchange / OneDrive / SharePoint / Teams backup with granular point-in-time restore.
- 365 Security Reviews — Standard — quarterly review of the M365 tenant for the firms whose clients ask “do you have an information-security program?” with documented evidence.
- Pro1 / Pro2 / Pro3 Master engagement — incident-response retainer with named technical lead. For firms whose people charge $300+/hour, the first time the retainer prevents a billable-hour outage it pays for itself. Billed per-minute only when authorized.
Vertical platform integrations
We work alongside the platforms most professional-services firms run — not as resellers, but as the IT partner who understands how those platforms intersect with your endpoint, identity, and security posture. For accounting firms: QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage Intacct, plus tax prep platforms (CCH Axcess, UltraTax, Lacerte) and audit tools (CaseWare, AuditBoard). For consulting and agency work: the standard productivity suite (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace), engagement-management tools (Asana, monday.com, Smartsheet), and CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce). For architecture and engineering: Autodesk Construction Cloud, BIM 360, Bluebeam Revu, Newforma. When a platform rollout collides with your conditional-access policy, you have one number to call.
How we run knowledge-work IT differently
Three differentiators show up most:
Predictable monthly billing. We bill per device. As your team grows, your IT cost grows in lock step — not in a step function when you outgrow your tier. Practice managers and CFOs love this; they can model it.
Minimal ticket gauntlet. Senior associates who need a fast change skip the ticket form. They Slack our shared channel, get a response in minutes, and move on. The discipline lives in our backend; your team’s calendar stays free.
Engagement-aware retention. A consulting engagement with a healthcare client may flow HIPAA-grade retention expectations through to your workspace; the same firm’s marketing-services engagement may carry a multi-year accounting retention obligation. Your engagement letters, outside counsel, and CFO define the retention requirement; we configure retention policies per client workspace to match, rather than running a one-size monolith.
When clients ask “do you have an IT program?”
The largest professional-services firms have to answer that question all the time — when responding to RFPs, when negotiating with sophisticated clients who require a vendor information-security program, when defending against malpractice claims. We provide the documented program: information-security policy, incident-response plan, third-party-vendor list, evidence of training completion. Your firm’s name on the cover; our operational substance underneath.