Suncoast Accounting - Managed IT Transformation
From Break-Fix Chaos to Fully Managed IT on One Flat Monthly Plan
Project Overview
Suncoast Accounting & Advisors, a 35-person firm in Tampa, was living the break-fix cycle: a backlog of 41 open IT issues, machines that hadn't been patched in months, shared passwords, and no visibility into any of it — heading into tax season, their busiest and most vulnerable time of year. In a structured 3-week onboarding we brought all 48 endpoints under RMM monitoring and management, migrated the firm to a hardened Microsoft 365 security baseline with MFA and conditional access on every account, standardized patching and managed backups, and gave every employee access to a client portal with ticketing and an AI assistant that answers common questions instantly. Today the firm runs on one flat per-user monthly plan with a 15-minute response SLA and a monthly plain-English health report delivered to the partners.
Our Role
IT Assessment, RMM Deployment, Microsoft 365 Security, Backup Strategy, Helpdesk Operations, vCIO Reporting
Key Deliverables
- Full IT assessment with risk-ranked findings
- NinjaOne RMM deployed to all 48 endpoints
- Automated patching for Windows, macOS and key applications
- Microsoft 365 security baseline: MFA, conditional access, Intune enrollment
- Managed, verified backups for email, files and workstations
- Client portal with ticketing, request tracking and AI assistant
- 15-minute response SLA during business hours
- Monthly plain-English health report for the partners
- Password manager rollout replacing shared spreadsheets
- Employee onboarding/offboarding runbook for new hires
The Challenge
The firm's technology had grown by accident, and it showed everywhere:
- 41 open IT issues tracked in an email inbox, some months old
- No patching standard — several machines were running unsupported software versions
- MFA enabled for only a handful of accounts; passwords shared in a spreadsheet
- Client financial data on workstations with no verified backup
- Break-fix vendor billed hourly with unpredictable invoices and multi-day response times
- Tax season traffic made every outage an emergency with revenue on the line
- No inventory of hardware, software licenses, or who had access to what
- Partners had zero visibility: no reporting, no metrics, no plan
Our Solution
We ran a structured onboarding and put the firm on our managed service model:
- Assessed every endpoint, account and license in week one — risk-ranked and shared openly
- Deployed NinjaOne RMM to all 48 endpoints for monitoring, patching and remote support
- Enforced the Microsoft 365 baseline: MFA everywhere, conditional access, device enrollment
- Stood up managed backups with verification — email, shared files and workstations
- Replaced the shared password spreadsheet with a firm-wide password manager
- Opened our helpdesk with a 15-minute business-hours response SLA
- Gave every employee the client portal: tickets, status tracking, AI assistant for instant answers
- Started monthly health reports and quarterly planning with the partners
Development Process
Our systematic approach to delivering exceptional results
Assessment
1 week
Inventoried everything and ranked every finding by risk — no surprises, no jargon.
- Endpoint and license inventory
- Microsoft 365 security review
- Backup and data-flow audit
- Risk-ranked findings presented to partners
RMM & Patching
1 week
Brought all endpoints under management and cleared the patch backlog in controlled waves.
- NinjaOne agent deployment to 48 endpoints
- Patch waves scheduled outside business hours
- Monitoring alerts and thresholds tuned
- Remote support tooling enabled
M365 Security Baseline
1 week
Hardened identity and access without disrupting a single workday.
- MFA rollout in staged groups
- Conditional access policies
- Intune device enrollment
- Password manager migration
Backups & Portal
3 days
Verified backups running, portal live, every employee trained on how to get help.
- Backup jobs configured and test-restored
- Client portal accounts for all 35 staff
- AI assistant loaded with firm-specific FAQs
- 15-minute team training sessions
Ongoing Operations
Ongoing
Helpdesk, monitoring, reporting and quarterly planning — the boring, reliable part.
- SLA-backed helpdesk with ticket tracking
- Monthly plain-English health report
- Quarterly planning with the partners
- Onboarding/offboarding runbook execution
Technology Stack
Modern tools and frameworks powering the platform
rmm
microsoft
security
continuity
support
reporting
Key Features
Comprehensive features designed for optimal learning experience
RMM on Every Endpoint
48 endpoints monitored, patched and supportable remotely — issues caught before users notice
M365 Security Baseline
MFA on every account, conditional access, and managed devices via Intune
Verified Backups
Email, files and workstations backed up — and actually test-restored
15-Minute SLA
Business-hours response commitment, measured and reported monthly
Client Portal + AI
Tickets, status tracking, and an AI assistant that resolves common questions instantly
Flat Per-User Pricing
One predictable monthly number — no hourly billing, no surprise invoices
Plain-English Reporting
Monthly health report the partners actually read: patching, tickets, risks, plan
On/Offboarding Runbook
New hires productive on day one; departures locked out the same hour
Project Screenshots
Visual showcase of the platform's key interfaces
Managed Endpoints
48 endpoints and the office network under one management plane
Impact & Results
Ninety days after onboarding, the difference was measurable everywhere:
Endpoints Managed
Every device monitored and patched
Patch Compliance
Up from an unmeasured baseline
Avg. Response
Down from multi-day waits
Open Issues
Backlog cleared in 90 days
MFA Coverage
Every account protected
Tax-Season Outages
Busiest season, zero downtime events
Key Achievements
- Cleared a 41-issue backlog to 3 within the first 90 days
- Rolled out MFA to 100% of accounts without a single lockout incident
- Ran the firm's first verified restore test — and it worked
- Cut average support response from days to 15 minutes
- Gave partners their first-ever monthly IT report with real metrics
- Completed the busiest tax season in firm history with zero downtime
Client Testimonials
What our clients say about working with us
"Last tax season our IT was a liability; this year it was invisible — everything just worked. The portal is great: my team opens a ticket, someone responds in minutes, and I get one report a month that I actually understand."
Robert Callahan
Managing Partner, Suncoast Accounting & Advisors
"The MFA rollout was the part I feared most — 35 accountants mid-season. AlbeTech staged it in groups, trained everyone in 15 minutes, and we had zero lockouts. That told me everything about how they work."
Diana Whitfield
Operations Director, Suncoast Accounting & Advisors
"I used to be the unofficial IT person on top of my actual job. Now I open the portal, ask the assistant, and half the time I don't even need a ticket. Getting those hours back changed my week."
Marcus Jimenez
Senior Accountant, Suncoast Accounting & Advisors
Ongoing Partnership
The quarterly roadmap keeps the firm ahead instead of catching up: