The Benefits of Working With a Virtual Assistant

Trying to work out whether hiring a virtual assistant is the best option for you and your business can be a bit daunting and confusing.

Some people looking into hiring a virtual assistant do recoil when seeing the hourly rates charged by experienced and competent virtual assistants and are completely perplexed by how they can save money working this way over hiring an employee. At face value it may look as if a virtual assistant will cost you more, but when you look into working with a VA you’ll soon see that isn’t the case and it’s not the only benefit either!

So what are the benefits?

1. Savings on Hiring an Employee

By working with a virtual assistant, you save on the expenses involved in just trying to hire a full or part time employee in the first place. This includes the amount of money and time you spend on advertising, shortlisting, interviewing and training a new employee.

2. Employer Responsibilities

In addition to the advertising and/or training costs, taking on an employee also means you are responsible for employee related benefits, pensions, health care schemes, tax and National Insurance contributions etc. All of which would need to be looked in to and researched to ensure that you were fulfilling your legal obligations as employer. So not only would this be costing you money but also your valuable time, researching, registering, completing forms etc. As a freelancer, a virtual assistant is responsible for paying their own taxes and National Insurance contributions and you are not responsible for pension scheme contributions etc. either, meaning you will not have to worry about incurring these costs at all.

3. Holiday and Sickness

Employers are responsible for and obligated to, pay employees minimum sickness and holiday pay. You can find the up to date sickness and holiday entitlements you, as an employer, are responsible for on the gov.uk website. Working with a virtual assistant completely eliminates these costs as virtual assistants are independent, freelance contractors, which means you only pay them for the work and hours they actually work for you.

4. Additional Employer Obligations

Employers also have an obligation to pay eligible employees up to a year maternity leave, the actual amount paid varies at different stages throughout the year.

Similarly, employers are obligated to give paid paternity leave and paid adoption leave, which is very similar to paid maternity leave.

Working with a virtual assistant, again, completely eliminates these obligations, responsibilities and costs.

Please note that you should conduct your own research and seek professional legal advise when looking to take on employees. The points I have highlighted are not the only factors that you need to consider and should not be taken as professional and/or legal advise or guidance.

5. Saving Office Space and Associated Costs

Since virtual assistants work virtually, there is no need for them to be onsite. This not only saves you space in your office, which, if you are just starting out may be limited, it also allows you to save on expenses such as ordering a new desk, telephones and telephone numbers and having to purchase a computer. You will even save on the costs of additional stationary and supplied refreshments (who can function without coffee right?!) and even cleaning and toileting supplies.

Saving office space has other benefits for you too, having less people in your premises means you can keep the costs of renting space down, less people taking up room, means less space needed and being paid for! It’s also great if you don’t happen to have office space! Whether you work remotely or independently yourself, are just starting out and trying to keep costs down or your office becomes inaccessible for whatever reason, the fact that a virtual assistant can still work regardless of your premise situation means your business is still able to operate and grow come wind, rain or snow!

Another big plus of not having to rent out office space, is the extra costs and responsibilities involved in adhering to health and safety regulations and undertaking fire and first aid training etc.

6. Only Paying For The Work Carried Out

I did mention this earlier and it is another great benefit for you and your business budget! When working with a virtual assistant you literally only pay for the work and/or project you ask them to do.

When working with a VA you are able to agree and set a maximum budget each month, enabling you to easily keep track of your outgoings. It also enables flexibility, if you have a quieter period or even better, a busy period, you can budget accordingly, safe in the knowledge that you’re only paying for work being completed and the fact that your expenditure is capped and will only differ if you give the go ahead. If you were to take on an employee, you would be responsible and obligated to pay set wages, tax and National Insurance regardless of how busy you were, the level of work being completed and how much money you had coming in.

If you know how many hours you need per month or after a few months, you notice you are using roughly the same amount of hours each month, many virtual assistants, like me, also offer discounted monthly packages. This can not only save you more money than you already are but it also gives you the added safety net of knowing exactly what your monthly outgoings will be. As I mentioned earlier, you can easily set and agree a budget with a VA so you know that your monthly admin bill won’t exceed that set amount but a package will give you the exact figure you will be paying. Most packages however, won’t offer the same level of flexibility as working on an hourly basis. A package usually involves you buying a set amount of hours for that month, therefore you pay that amount regardless of whether you utilise all those hours or not. The packages each VA offers will differ so it’s always best to discuss your options with the virtual assistant you are planning on working with.

Which ever option you decide upon will still enable you to budget with confidence and set your own comfortable limit.

7. Ad Hoc Support

Another huge bonus of working with a virtual assistant is the fact that it offers you the ability to outsource just for specific tasks or projects! You may not need daily or weekly admin carried out, but you may need help and support for specific projects or the odd task, not a problem when working with a VA! You can call upon a VA when you need that extra support and only then! If you had a part time or full time employee you would need to be finding work for them to do whenever they were scheduled to work, if you weren’t, you would be wasting your hard earned money!

8. Working Direct

Yes there are other options when it comes to taking on help, such a going through a temp agency, but being able to talk and work directly with a virtual assistant, not only saves you money i.e. no agency commissions or fees to pay on top, but it also means you get decide who you want to work with and who will fit in with you and your business! Plus working direct also reduces the risks of instructions being lost in translation.

9. No Payroll 

Working with a virtual assistant takes away the headache of having to have a structured payroll department in place. Most small businesses, those that work independently and family run businesses don’t necessarily have a structured payroll with expensive software in place. Working with a virtual assistant simplifies the whole process, as opposed to hiring an employee and ensuring tax codes and National Insurance contributions are at the correct levels etc…. Just make sure you keep the appropriate records to and from your VA for your own tax returns etc.

10. When YOU aren’t around

I mentioned earlier the differences between taking on an employee and working with a virtual assistant when it came to sickness and holiday, but what about when you aren’t about?

You may decide to take a breather, an extended holiday or go away for a mid week break, and we all catch the sniffles occasionally, so what happens if you don’t want to or can’t continue to work for any period of time? If you had an employee you would still be obligated to pay their monthly wage and if the worst should happen or if you wanted to part ways due to relocation etc, you would have to follow certain policies and procedures and ensure that you weren’t in breach of any employment laws etc. None of which you need to worry about when working with a freelance VA.

Working with a virtual assistant means you can easily ask them to wait a couple of weeks before starting tasks again without having to worry about finding the money to pay them in the interim, enabling you to take some time out, whatever the reason and should you need to part ways, as long as you adhere to your contract terms the whole process is a lot simpler and easier!

So there we have it!

As you can see there are countless benefits to working with a virtual assistant, and when you start to think of the associated and ongoing costs in hiring an employee, outsourcing can and does make perfect sense and really does save you money, let alone time and a whole host of headaches.

To find out more about virtual assistant’s check out my website where you’ll find other helpful pages, lists of services and more blog posts about outsourcing!