IT requests at a small business with no IT department

At most small businesses, "IT" is a person who also does three other jobs. Maybe it's the owner, the office manager or the teenager who's good with computers. Maybe it's an outside tech who comes in on Tuesdays. Either way, IT requests arrive the same way: a text, a shout across the room, a sticky note on the monitor.

Enterprise IT service desks (ITSM tools) solve this with change management, asset databases and SLAs. You don't need any of that. You need four things.

1. One place to send IT requests

Pick a single front door and tell everyone about it:

• A short form with the questions you always end up asking: what's wrong, which computer or device, how urgent, and a screenshot.
• A QR code on the printer, the router closet and the front-desk computer, so people can report a problem in 30 seconds from their phone.
• An email address, like it@, for people who'd rather write.

2. A number and an owner for each request

When the outside tech arrives on Tuesday, they should see a list: IT-41 printer jams at the front desk, IT-42 new hire needs an email account, IT-43 Wi-Fi drops in the back office. Each with an owner, a status and the history.

3. Simple priorities

Skip the five-level priority matrix. Three are plenty:

• Urgent: someone can't work, or customers are affected (the card reader is down).
• Soon: annoying, with a workaround (the second monitor flickers).
• Whenever: nice to have (a new keyboard).

Let the requester choose, and let the person handling it adjust.

4. Updates without anyone chasing

The number one complaint about informal IT: "I asked two weeks ago and never heard back." A request tracker that emails people when their request is picked up and when it's done fixes most of that by itself.

Bonus: recurring IT chores

Some IT work happens on a calendar: renew the domain, check the backups, update the point-of-sale software, rotate the Wi-Fi password. Scheduled tickets create these automatically, so they don't depend on anyone's memory.

Bonus: know your equipment

Keep a list of computers, printers and network gear with serial numbers and purchase dates, and log each repair against the device. When the same printer has its fifth repair this year, the replace-or-repair decision makes itself.

Setting this up in TicketStacker

Start from the IT help template, print QR codes for your devices, and share the form. Requests get numbers and owners, requesters get updates, scheduled tickets handle the recurring chores, and Assets keeps the equipment list with each device's repair history. Your outside tech can be a member of your company, so IT tickets can be assigned to them like anyone else.

Try it

Join the pilot. It's free while we build TicketStacker with a small group of businesses.