Virtual assistants are independent contractors or entrepreneurs who provide administrative assistance to multiple clients. Unlike regular assistants, they work out of their homes rather than at your business’ physical location. There are numerous advantages to using a virtual assistant: Location. If you work from home, you don’t have to find a place to put an employee. No Overhead. They provide their own office supplies, desk, computer, software, and phone lines. No Benefits. They’re not your employee, so you aren’t responsible for paying social security or income taxes, holidays, insurance, vacation or sick pay. Lots of Flexibility. It’s significantly easier to find a virtual assistant who can work evening hours or weekends—after all, they’re working from home. And you can give them more or less hours as your needs change.

There are virtual staffing companies that match virtual assistants with small and home-based businesses who need help running things. To allow you to track their progress, many agencies have their staff send daily reports of their activities. They may say how many inbound calls they received, how many outbound calls they made, how many appointments they set, what documents they worked on, as well as how many hours they put in for the day and their cumulative hours for the week. This can help you stay on budget—if you see they’ve already worked the total hours you planned to pay them for, you can push back other projects until next week. Virtual agencies try to match each client with an assistant who is a good fit for their needs. They look at qualifications, personality and work style, and hours of availability—both number and times. Whatever your unique requirements, they’ll work to find someone who’s a good fit.