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Opentra
Opentra vs spreadsheets and a shared inbox

Stop being the integration layer between your own tools.

Most small MSPs start with HubSpot for CRM, a spreadsheet for time, and a shared inbox for tickets. Nothing talks, and you are the integration layer between them. Opentra is the one system that path runs on, from inbound email to paid invoice.

Opentra
spreadsheets and a shared inbox
What it is
A PSA built around billing, from first email to paid invoice
Separate tools with you as the glue between them
Billing into your accounting
Approved time and contracts push straight to Xero, per-org rates and rounding honoured
Totals copied out of a spreadsheet into your accountant by hand
Time to billable line
Live timers on the ticket become clean, approved billable lines
A spreadsheet you rebuild from memory at month-end
Email to ticket
MS Graph ingest resolves the true client contact, even on forwarded or automated mail
A shared inbox: no ticket, no history, no owner
Projects & contracts
Phases, tasks, milestones, quote-to-project, and token-based client approval portals
Another tool, or another spreadsheet
Data ownership
Your PostgreSQL, single-tenant, export anytime
Split across HubSpot, sheets and a mailbox
Support
Free community tier; priority support and an SLA on paid tiers
You are the support
Cost
Free self-hosted Community; flat $149/mo Pro, no per-seat
Cheap to start; the real cost is your time
Best for
Owner-operator MSPs who want billing that reaches the accountant without re-keying
Two people and a dozen clients, for now

spreadsheets and a shared inbox details reflect publicly listed pricing and positioning and change often — verify current pricing with the vendor. For orientation, not a quote.

Who it’s for

You started the way most small MSPs do: HubSpot for CRM, a spreadsheet or two for time, and a shared inbox for tickets. It worked, until it didn’t. Now you are the integration layer, and month-end is a re-keying marathon.

The honest case for the stack you have

It is cheap to start, every tool is familiar, and there is nothing to migrate. When you are two people and a dozen clients, the duct-taped stack is genuinely the right call, so don’t let anyone sell you a PSA before you need one.

The trouble is that it doesn’t scale with you. Every new tool is another island, every handoff is manual, and the seams between them are exactly where time leaks and billable work quietly falls through.

Where Opentra wins

One system, email to invoice. Inbound mail becomes a ticket, the ticket carries its own time, and that time flows into a Xero invoice, with nothing re-keyed between three tools that don’t talk.

Time stops leaking. Timers persist in the database, rounding and work types are built in, and only approved time reaches an invoice, so the work you did is the work you bill.

Month-end in an afternoon. The re-keying marathon becomes a review: check the billing run, approve it, push the drafts to Xero.

And you still own everything. Self-hosted, single-tenant and flat-priced: the independence of your own stack without the seams between the tools.