Freelance Administrative Assistant
Presented by: Karine Coderre, Louise Roy, Pauline Bergevin
What is it exactly? It’s a new profession for the Digital Age.
Freelance Administrative Assistants’ do the same tasks as the administrative assistant but from their home. They are entrepreneurs and are hired by different companies. It responds to increasing demand from Small business leaders (because large companies already have their own administrative assistant). Freelance Administrative assistants have become more in demand as businesses increase their use of the internet for daily operations.
Why employers’ hire Administrative Assistants? What is the purpose of their jobs?
Some employers cannot afford to pay a full-time administrative assistant.
They don’t have time. They don’t have the expertise.
The freelance administrative assistant must have extensive experience in administration, planning, and organization because employers need to rely on them quickly.
Time is money! Freelancers need to explain to managers how they need to do their job, possess the right administrative tools, and how to properly store important papers.
Freelance administrative assistance companies work on a variety of projects such as:
- Manage your communication flow (thousands of emails and interrupting phone calls).
- Diary management (they can arrange your schedule).
- Digital file ranking
- Invoicing
- Create databases (they can also take care of your bookkeeping).
- Business card scanning
- Proofreading and text correction
- Leave management
- Even …Job interview
Freelancers can work for multiple clients in a single day. Often when they have multiple clients, the interventions are not the same because companies have different needs: some start their business; others are there for a long time and others are on the verge of bankruptcy.
Freelance Administrative Assistants need to know how they can be useful for companies that hire them. It can be for a replacement, only a few days, a month or for specific projects.
If freelancers need information from one company, they can work on another project from the same company or work for another company while waiting for the answer.
Benefits:
Sole proprietor (Your own home business); flexibility (set your own business); choose your own projects; tax write-off; prioritize work and minimal supervision.
Pros for the manager:
They have people available around the clock; Have a larger talent pool (they can help you with many tasks). Offer a money-back guarantee.
With the increasing number of administrative assistants working from home, several administrative assistant sites that offer their services in this way were born
For more Information: https://www.wikihow.com/Work-from-Home-As-an-Administrative-Assistant
Telesecretary Forums: http://www.les-telesecretaires.com/
Blog croque feuille: https://www.croquefeuille.fr/?+-Blog-+
secretary.Inc. https://www.secretaire-inc.com/
Virtual administrative assistants
that work independently set their own hourly rate, typically falls between $30 and $55 per hour, depending on their level of experience and whether they have received specialized training in relevant fields. Those that work independently are also responsible for finding and managing their own clients.
According to PayScale.com, the average rate for a virtual assistant in Canada is $22.50 per hour.
Minimum per hour Maximum per hour
Medical Secretary $14.00 $24.46
Legal Secretary $15.00 $31.87
Administrative Assistant $15.00 $29.74
Executive Assistant $16.00 $38.46
Virtual Assistant $22.50 $35.00
EDUCATION: While certain fields have educational or licensing requirements, most clients hire virtual assistants based on prior experience. Let’s say you’re going to work as a real estate assistant, you’re going to probably need your real estate license in order to work with realtors. If you’re going to be a medical assistant, most likely you’ll need a university degree or training in medical assistance or transcription services, so it depends on your target niche as a virtual assistant.
- Technical School (Medical, Secretarial, and Legal)
- Collegial certificate
- University
There are educational requirements for virtual assistants, those with specialized training, certification and experience can often charge more for their expertise.
10 MOST USEFUL SKILLS
- Communication skills
- Attention to details
- Scheduling
- Clerical skills
- Microsoft Suite Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook)
- Customer services
- Data Management
- Social Media management
- Organizational skills
- Problem-solving
Discover FREE popular Apps for freelances
What does it take to be a successful freelancer? Is it knowledge and experience, people skills, consistency, and hard effort, serendipity, or a random streak of luck?
It’s all of that, plus a bit of useful technology.
Using the right applications can put technology to work for you in your freelance career.
Google applications becoming the most popular
GMAIL APPLICATION
allows you to check and sort emails and create to-do lists.
Then there’s Google Docs. Google spreadsheets, Google calendar, and Google slides, which are all saved on the cloud. This means you can access them from anywhere you have an internet connection.
Plus, you can share them with team members or clients at the press of a button.
And let’s not forget about communication – Google Hangouts is a chat messenger you can use for video conferences.
GOOGLE DRIVE (FREE)
Google Drive is becoming a popular alternative to Dropbox because almost everyone has a Google account, and Google Drive includes access to their suite of software tools, including Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
These programs allow you to work online and collaborate with others in real-time, storing the files in your Drive. Like Dropbox, it comes free with limited storage space (15GB), with the option to purchase more. You can also install Drive on your computer to sync your online files.
CUSHION
Planning and managing for the whole year
Constantly taking on too much work and never thinking to take a break
Cushion is a planning app built by freelancers, so you can expect it caters to freelancing needs. You’ll be able to schedule and plan your work, control your budget, as well as manage your projects, emails, and expenses, all in one place.
Specifically, you can:
- plan your work in a Calendar
- view all your tasks (deadlines included) in a Gantt-like chart
- send and track invoices
- estimate the final price for clients
- keep an eye on your financial goals
- generate graphs showing your client work, projects, and lists
This application also helps you maintain a work-life balance – there’s a separate section where you can plan, keep track of, and schedule vacations.
CLOCKIFY
Time tracker and billable hour’s calculator
Clockify is a time tracking and timesheet app that’ll help you manage your billable time and track how productive you are with your work.
GRAMMARLY extra functions $$
Grammar and spell-check app
All writers need to make sure their guest posts, eBooks, white papers, and short stories are free of mistakes and style errors, as well as edited perfectly – and Grammarly is the perfect app to help get your closer to ideal content.
You’ll get to:
- correct your mistakes (typos, repetitive words, comma usage, punctuation, and grammar)
- enhance your writing style and vocabulary
- create a personal dictionary
- track your improvements through performance stats
You can even set Grammarly to capture and notify you of genre-specific writing mistakes, and you also get genre specific-style checks.
HEMINGWAY EDITOR
Style checker application
The Hemingway editor is here to make sure your text is void of stylistic errors, and thus more likely to be accepted for publication.
You copy your text to the editor and all problem areas are highlighted in an instant – this includes:
- uses of the passive voice
- phrases that have simpler alternatives
- sentences that are too long and hard to read
- adverbs you’d be best to remove to help improve the text’s flow
DOODLE extra functions $$
Scheduling application
Doodle is a scheduling app that helps you manage all your errands as a virtual assistant from one app – and streamline task organization for your clients.
You’ll be able to:
- manage your tasks from a to-do list
- schedule phone calls, conference calls, Skype sessions in a calendar view showing days and hours, in one click
- manage your client’s appointments through the Meet Me page that shows your client’s availability in terms of scheduled events
- send automatic reminders for events
You’ll also be able to arrange meetings in agreement with your client or other participants in the conversation (if you’re handling a Doodle account in the place of your client) by creating a tool that helps all collaborators indicate whether a certain time slot works for them or not.
BUFFER
Social media manager
Buffer is perfect if you have to handle social media management for your client – you’ll spend less time on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, but you’ll be more effective.
You’ll get the means to:
- schedule and automatically share posts to various social media accounts (anything from Facebook updates to retweets)
- optimize your posting schedule
- analyze post engagement, as well as handle additional activity analytics
- create your own visuals to accompany posts, or add images and videos
This app’s biggest strength lies in its approach to scheduling – you can plan content months ahead in Buffer’s calendar, get tips on the ideal time to post content, and enjoy custom schedule.
This is a short introduction to useful application tools you can found to help you manage successfully your freelancer’s career.
Whether it’s training your brain to help you stay focused, keeping track of time spent on a task, or figuring out your budget – you can be sure there is an app for that. Why not give these app “coworkers” a try and get your work-life balance in order thanks to a more organized and disciplined freelancer life?
You can discover more about visiting this link below.