The search for competent virtual assistants was on the rise in 2022 as a result of most businesses becoming, partially or completely, online businesses. Research has shown that it will continue to be on the rise in 2023 due to the increasing number of online businesses, and busy individuals in need of assistants who can help them manage their time and resources. In the previous post, we discussed why you might want to consider becoming a virtual assistant in 2023. In this post, we will discuss 10 must-have tools that will help you do your job more efficiently.
Why You Need These Tools
For Quick Communication and Tracking
Using communication and tracking tools as a VA enables you to communicate with clients easily in case you need to give them an update or need their input on something. It also helps you oversee your work where necessary and keep track of your work time and activity.
Help You Work Quicker and with Better Results
Virtual assistant tools help you deliver work more efficiently. Since most of the work you’re assisting your clients with might be administrative, creative, or technical, it helps to have software to speed up the process. It will also help you produce better and more accurate results.
Some of these essential tools include;
- Google Workspace offers convenient ways to share files and collaborate through its most notable features, Google Drive and Google Docs. Google Drive is an effective way to store files and share them with multiple people. You can make it commonly accessible or specifically accessible to the people who are working on a particular project, whether they are VAs, regular employees, or project managers. It is particularly useful for files that are too large to be shared in other ways.
Google Docs allows you to share a word document so that multiple people can access it simultaneously. They may be using it for their own tasks or working on it together for a shared task. It’s helpful for collaborating since you can track the edits each person makes and make comments. You can also use it for word processing functions.
- Trello – Trello is a project management tool that helps you stay organized with all of your projects. You can create lists and cards to keep track of tasks, assign them to team members (or yourself!), and move them along as they get completed. It’s also great for collaborating with others on projects since it allows multiple users to access the same boards and lists. It helps you understand if they are optimizing the time they are billing you for.
The app provides you with productivity reports that can support the feedback inputs you give your clients. It allows you to monitor how much time you spend on different websites—both productive and non-productive. What’s more, it shows you how much time you spend on a particular task or project. This helps you assess how much work is attributable to a particular project, which may come in use for billing.
- Buffer is a social media tool that allows you to access all your client’s social media accounts on a common platform. You, your client, and the marketing team can manage all your social media profiles in Buffer. You can use the publish feature to schedule social media posts and keep them for your review through its approval option.
The best part about Buffer is that if there are multiple VAs or other team members involved in creating social media posts, all the posts will be shared within the preset publishing schedule.
- Canva: Canva is an online graphic design tool that allows you to easily create social media posts, marketing banners, graphics, and presentations. It has various templates for you to choose from, most of which are free. You can easily use Canva to create social media or marketing content and share the link with your client or marketing team for review and input.
- Wave Accounting – Wave Accounting is a cloud-based finance software that you can use for various aspects of business accounting. It is an easy-to-use accounting software designed specifically for small businesses (or side hustles). With Wave Accounting you can easily manage expenses, track invoices, handle payroll tasks such as tax filing, and more—all from one place! It comes with support from knowledgeable experts who are available 24/7 if something goes wrong or if you have any questions about how best to use its features.
Using this tool, you can raise sales orders and invoices, keep track of business expenses, share estimates, and accept payments. You can also manage your bank transactions through it and organize your banking transactions into categories. The software allows you to follow up with customers on pending payments. You can also use it to manage the regulatory compliances of your business. By automating repetitive accounting processes, this software will help you get time-consuming work done in fewer hours.
- Zoom – Zoom is a video-conferencing tool that makes it easier than ever to connect with clients around the world in real time. You can use Zoom for virtual meetings, interviews, webinars, presentations, and more—all without leaving your home office! It integrates seamlessly with other popular business applications like Slack and Trello so everything can be done from one place.
Zoom has useful features like screen sharing and chat interactions. Screen sharing is particularly useful when you are discussing details of work tasks with your clients. You can also record meetings to view later. Zoom’s virtual conference room feature is useful for online meetings that require a larger number of people to be present.
- Team Up: Calendly is a scheduling tool that helps you set up meetings with other people. Through this online tool, you can set up one-to-one meetings as well as team meetings. This tool is for planning calendars or scheduling appointments. It helps you plan ahead with your team and have a clear picture of pending tasks. It also has a free plan that helps business owners prioritize and delegate.
You select time slots where you are available and then send a link to the person to choose a slot that works for them. One of its most useful features is time zone detection, which allows each person to view the time slots in their time. Calendly automatically sends reminders to the meeting participants via email.
- Slack – Slack is an amazing communication platform that allows you to keep in touch with clients, colleagues, and other professionals in the field. You can create different channels for different topics, share files, and even set up automated messages so that you don’t have to manually respond every time someone has a question or comment.
It simplifies communication because you can streamline interactions based on a task, project, or subject. This feature means that the people who need to be in on that conversation can see and participate in the discussion without the hassle of multiple emails or personal messages.
- Docusign is a software that helps you to digitally sign documents. It’s a quick way to get your signatures done electronically instead of printing, physically signing, and then scanning the signed documents.
- Evernote – Evernote is an incredibly powerful note-taking app that will help keep all of your ideas organized in one place. You can store notes on anything from personal tasks like grocery lists to professional ones like client briefs or website copy ideas—and easily access them anywhere using any device!
Whether you’re looking to get started on your virtual assistant business or want to uplevel your existing virtual assistant business, having the right tools can make all the difference. With our list of 10 essential apps and tools virtual assistants need, you can be sure you have pretty much everything you need to successfully run a VA business.
