Time is our most valuable commodity (even though we should charge using it!) and as a self employed bookkeeper, you’ll know that there never seems to be enough of it. Being self-employed means you have to wear all of the hats; you’re in charge of customer service, you’re an administrator, a marketer, and so much more. It’s very easy to feel overwhelmed.
An endless amount of administration, emails to answer, and seemingly mundane tasks can leave you feeling like you’ve got a mountain to climb, yet the important tasks that will develop your business and help you to make money can be neglected.
What about hiring a virtual assistant? Virtual Assistants are highly skilled people, who can tackle a range of tasks for busy bookkeepers, from the everyday mundane jobs to more complex tasks. Many virtual assistants are available for hire on an ‘as and when needed’ basis, and they deal with their own tax affairs, so they are cheaper and less complicated to hire than an employee.
Here are 7 ways that a virtual assistant can help a busy bookkeeper;
- Managing emails
You can easily lose hours once you delve into your inbox, and you can lose sight of which emails are a priority to answer and which you can leave for a more convenient time. A virtual assistant can filter out the important emails, then respond to the rest for you. They can always copy you in to emails before they send them to a client too, so you can rest assured that no errors have been made.
- Diary management
If you’re forever juggling meetings, appointments with clients, and other events, you’ll know how difficult it can be to stay up to date if your schedule changes last minute. A virtual assistant can rid you of the stress of constantly accessing and updating your calendar. They can deal with scheduling or cancelling any appointments and responding to meeting invitations.
- Creating presentations
If you need information summarised and turned into a PowerPoint Presentation or similar, using a virtual assistant can save you time and energy, and you’ll have everything you need at your fingertips in meetings, in a format you can share.
- Research
Research is important for any business that wants to keep up to date, but it’s also very time consuming, and before you know it, you’ve wasted an entire morning or afternoon on it. A virtual assistant can do these tasks for you, from researching your competitors and the latest industry news, to finding new business opportunities and contacts.
- Managing your social media
Every business needs a social media presence, but posting content, interacting with your followers, and keeping everything up to date can soon feel like a full-time job. A virtual assistant can post updates and promotions, schedule future posts, and answer any questions your existing or potential clients might have.
- Dealing with admin tasks
Having to deal with a mountain of administrative tasks can feel overwhelming when you work for yourself. It’s usually mundane, and it doesn’t contribute directly to growing your business. You might feel like there’s anything you’d rather be doing, but it needs to be done. Rather than crumble with overwhelm, why not hire a virtual assistant who can take all the day to day tasks off your hands? This will free up your time to concentrate on what’s really important.
- Data entry
You might be a numbers person, but filling in endless spreadsheets or forms can be very time-consuming and mundane. A virtual assistant can rid you of the burden so you can concentrate your efforts elsewhere.
A virtual assistant offers flexible, professional, and affordable help, which allows you to focus on your business, and helps you maintain your passion for what you do. Rather than thinking, ‘can I afford to hire help?’, think ‘can I afford not to?’
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