Business Tools for Small Home Businesses Part 2

More Free Small Business Resources

Today I’m going to share some of my FAVORITE productivity tools. The best part? They ALL have free versions that work really well. Time Tracking for Virtual Assistants

In Part 1, I mentioned that there is ONE business tool/resource that I have been using since I started my business. It’s my time tracking system/tool. I have been using MyHours and truly find it user friendly and simple to use. There are many features I don’t take advantage of, such a team time tracking, simply because I don’t need them. They have been updating and upgrading this time tracking software throughout the years, and it gets better every time. You can even use their ‘live’ time tracking by using their start and stop timer. In my business, I am switching between clients often enough that I decided not to use that feature (and likely I’d forget to stop it and restart - I know my weaknesses:) so I jot down my start and stop times on good old-fashioned paper, then transfer it to MyHours once a week.

You can add your clients, projects, tasks, rates and more. I recently upgraded from the free plan (literally it took my 10 years to need an upgrade) in order to filter by tasks as one of my clients has some tricky projects with tasks within tasks…it’s complicated LOL.

There are a number of other time-keeping software options out there, but I have never run into a feature that MyHours was missing for my purposes, so I’ve never tried another program.

Online Meeting Scheduling Tool

You may have heard of Doodle? This little gem is something I rely on a LOT! Scheduling meetings for large groups can be a challenge, especially when working with very busy Entrepreneurs. Creating a FREE Doodle poll with lots of dates and times is super easy. From there, you can add the recipients’ emails and click send. All they have to do is open the link and enter their preferences. You can edit polls as needed. The tool has a number of upgrades if you need more robust features, but free works great for me.

Online Project Management Software

Clickup is a tool that I have only scratched the surface of. I started by using it to track my own tasks and client projects. It takes a little getting used to and I’m definitely not an expert at this point.

You can integrate with other software tools you already use such as Google Drive if that is where you store documents. You can even sync it up with Google Calendar for due dates and tasks to update across both platforms. The list of integrations is insane!

The notifications are very helpful. I am SO dependent on my system notifying me when I need to work on something, submit something, follow up on something – you get the idea.

If nothing else, check out Clickup and start with a free account to see what it offers.

Google Workspace

I’m sure you are familiar with these! In the last 6 years, I haven’t had a client who did not utilize Google for many aspects of their business, especially email, calendar and Google Drive. The ability to collaborate with Google Workspace tools is perfect for an online business assistant. All the tools are easy-to-use and for the most part Google Workspace “gets along” with and syncs with other systems. I’ve had some challenges between Google and Outlook calendars but was able to find pretty reasonable workarounds.

To sum it up, as a virtual assistant, your clients may look to you for best practices to make the relationship really work and to provide benefit to their business. All of my clients, at my suggestion, have given me full permissions for their calendars so that I can schedule and edit on their behalf. Most of my clients have given me their own logins for Google so I can do things like look for an email they can’t find or a document they need. It is all in the name of saving time! The more access I have, the more of the time-consuming tasks I can take care of.

More Small Business Tips:

• Work from home tips

Katie Bauer is the owner of Effective Virtual Assistance, LLC, based out of Northern Virginia, Effective Virtual Assistance, LLC partners with small businesses locally and nationally to give business owners the time they need to focus on core business and revenue generating activities.

With a firm belief that when a client is successful, that reflects on her success, Katie’s goal is to go above and beyond with each and every client task and project.

Over the years Katie has been contacted by aspiring VAs through clients or directly via her website, asking for insight and advice. She realized writing a short eBook to share her experience along with offering some of the documents and tools she uses to run her business could benefit other Virtual Assistants. Click HERE! You definitely want to see all the professional resources & customizable forms available.