VA: My favorite tools for work
Every artist has a brush, every chef their mise en place, and so should every virtual assistant have their toolbelt stacked with technological tools to help them be efficient and accurate in their business. Here is the list of my absolute favorite tools to help me help my clients: (also, nothing is sponsored. Not even affiliate links. I just really like these things)
Finance:
Wave is my absolute go-to when it comes to invoice management and credit card payments. I personally am a big fan of things being one click and forget about it if possible. Wave was easy to personalize and set up, and my clients can pay in whatever way is convenient to them. It keeps track of incoming payments, sends out reminders and pdfs of invoices, and is just all around insanely easy to use. You do not have to use them to process payments, but if you do they are incredibly competitive. For the VA that just wants to input info once and get paid fast, Wave is the way to go.
Documents:
SmallPDF is great for assistants that want to make difficult document editing look like a walk in the park. SmallPDF lets you combine different types of documents into one, encrypt a file, request a signature, and edit PDFs like they are word docs. The interface is easy to use, and they have a free trial (but the subscription is worth it for some docu-magic!)
Time Tracking:
Not every client will ask for their hours to be tracked and sent to them, but you should always use a time tracker to make sure that you accurately have the number of hours you are offering, as well as making sure neither of you are getting too good of a deal on your work. My time tracker of choice is Harvest. Harvest lets you track from multiple devices, separate by task and client, and creates some pretty snazzy graphs and charts that will make your time reports look incredibly put together.
Project Management:
No longer the hidden gem of the project management world, Asana is pretty much everything you would want to track your work. And you can get it for free! You can share your status of projects with your clients and they can see in real time where you are at toward completion. It’s also very useful for helping nudge busy executives when they have daily tasks you need them to complete as part of you finishing your tasks.
Messaging:
Slack is essentially the digital version of popping your head into someone’s office. Wonderful for quick chats, questions, or check ins, it shows your availability without needing to link a calendar (though you certainly can). Sync it with your phone for a mobile ping, and set it up so it doesn’t notify you outside your business hours. Add in a sprinkling of cute emojis and apps for some quality meme-age, and it’s downright wonderful.
