Virtual assistance (or VA) is the professional service of remote administrative office and other specialized support by a virtual assistant who works with clients in an ongoing, collaborative professional relationship.
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Virtual assistants utilize today's technology to deliver their services and communicate with clients by working remotely.
A virtual assistant's core practice consists of administrative or clerical tasks. However, many virtual assistants offer additional specialties that fall under various other categories, such as marketing, website development or maintenance, creative and technical services, etc. In addition, many VA’s have target niches, and those include real estate, coaching, and writers to name a few prominent ones.
Virtual assistants come from a variety of business backgrounds, but most have several years administrative experience earned in the real (non-virtual) business world working in occupations such as administrative assistant, executive assistant, secretary, legal assistant, paralegal, legal secretary, real estate assistant, office manager, etc.
A virtual assistance service is a larger company providing clients with a wide variety of support services through a single point of contact. Tasks may or may not be delegated to another person in the company depending on who is best-suited for the assignment. For instance, graphic design work would be delegated to a graphic designer within the company. Proponents of this model say that the benefit to the client is that all types of services are offered under one roof.
Virtual assistants were an integral part of the 2007 bestselling book The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss.[1] Ferriss claimed to have hired virtual assistants to check his email, pay his bills and run parts of his company.[2]
Virtual assistants are independent contractors, not employees, who structure their own rates and operating standards and policies, pay their own self-employment taxes, and control management of the work and how it is carried out. While many self-employed people specialize in one area—for example, they are bookkeepers or web development specialists who work from home—a true virtual assistant provides across-the-board administrative (and other) services.
Employees are managed and directed by the employer they work for. They are paid a salary with employment taxes deducted by the employer. Work is directed, managed and supervised by the employer.
Temps are employees of a staffing agency who go on-site or work virtually for an employer customer. They are paid by the staffing agency they work for, while their on-site or virtual work and activities are managed, directed and supervised by the employer customer of the staffing agency.
Virtual assistants and virtual assistance companies are at odds over how the term "virtual assistance" should be used. Some claim that to qualify as a "virtual assistant" you must be a self-employed independent contractor while virtual assistance companies claim that virtual assistance is defined by the remote, "virtual" working relationship with the client.