Top 10 Tools for Virtual Assistants: Streamline Your Business and Increase Ease

When getting started as a virtual assistant, it’s easy to be so focused on your client’s projects that you hold off on streamlining your own business. If you can start your business using the below tools to optimize organization and ease, you will thank yourself later. There’s no need to know every platform and tool when you’re just getting started as a VA, so don’t feel pressured about that. Rest assured, you will be able to learn the various platforms each of your clients use. There are, however, some tools I recommend you get familiar with and start using right away in your VA business.

Here are my top 10 tool recommendations for virtual assistants:

Asana

I don’t know where I’d be without Asana. Asana is a life-changing task management tool that helps you stay on top of your tasks, both for your own business and for your client’s work. It allows you to create projects, assign tasks, set deadlines, and track progress. With Asana, you can streamline every piece of a project and your workflow to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.

Google Workspace

Google Workspace is a suite of (IMO, essential!) productivity tools, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Docs, Sheets, Forms, and more. It’s a must-have tool for virtual assistants who share files with clients and team members. With Google Drive, you can store and share files securely in the cloud, while Google Docs and Sheets make it easy to create, edit, and collaborate on documents in real-time.

Toggl

Toggl is a time-tracking tool that helps you track the time you spend on client work. It enables you to create projects, track time spent on each task, and generate reports to make invoicing a breeze. You can also use Toggl to track the time you spend on your own business tasks so you can identify areas that are time sucks for you or where you aren’t getting a good ROI on your time spent. This is super valuable to know when you start thinking about hiring a team member because then you know the areas you want to hire someone who can do that work faster or better than you.

Acuity

Acuity is an online scheduling tool that makes it easy for potential clients to schedule a discovery call with you. Plus, you can create a calendar for existing clients to schedule calls with you without having to go back and forth to decide on a time that works for you both. It allows you to create your availability schedule, send automated call reminders, and even send automatic calendar invites when a call is booked. Acuity integrates with other tools on this list like Google Calendar and Zoom, making your scheduling process completely automated and effortless.

Canva

Canva is a user-friendly graphic design tool that enables you to create social media graphics, blog post images and marketing materials that stand out. Canva has beautiful, expertly-designed templates, font combinations, and color combinations, plus stock images, for you to use. There’s a free version but more and more, they’re limiting the best features to their paid-only peeps. With Canva, you can create nice graphics and branding for yourself as you’re getting started. All of my clients in the past 5+ years have had me do some kind of work for them inside of Canva so it’s good to have a little experience with it.

HelloSign

HelloSign (now DropboxSign) is a digital signature tool where you can send contracts and agreements to your clients for their legally-binding e-signature. It allows you to sign, send, and store documents securely online, saving you time and making your business and client onboarding process efficient and organized. You can also track the status of your documents and get notified when they are viewed and signed. The free version currently lets you send out up to 3 documents for signature per month.

LastPass

LastPass is a password management tool that allows your clients to securely share their passwords with you. It saves you time by eliminating the need to store or remember multiple passwords. It also provides peace of mind to both you and your client since you don’t actually know the passwords. The LastPass plug-in will let you auto-populate the username and password when you’re on a login page where a client has shared credentials with you.

PayPal

With PayPal, you can send invoices to your clients quickly and on a recurring basis. There’s a small processing fee on received payments that can be written off on your taxes as a business expense (at least for U.S. taxes). PayPal is a well-known tool that makes it easy for you to invoice clients and receive payments quickly.

Grammarly

I first heard about Grammarly on a YouTube ad, I’ve gotta say that was good marketing! Grammarly is a writing assistant plug-in that helps you write error-free content. I use the free version and it helps a lot. It checks your grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and highlights areas with suggestions for improvements to your writing. As a virtual assistant, if you write (or edit) content for your clients, Grammarly is a great tool to keep your writing polished and free of typos.

Zoom

By now, the whole world knows about Zoom, a free video-conferencing tool. It enables you to have virtual video calls, share your screen, and record your meetings. Meetings through Zoom help build stronger relationships with your clients, even if you can’t meet them in person. At least with the clients I’ve worked with, similar options like Skype and Google Meet are not used, it’s all about Zoom.

Having the right set of tools will make all the difference as you start and grow your virtual assistant business. Grab my free VA Starter Kit for more support as you start your journey!