Start up costs for a virtual assistant
I recommend that a virtual assistant sets up a designated office space or room in the house in order to operate her business and you may already have this set up in the form of a study or computer area. So some items you need you will already have.
Remember all start up costs for a virtual assistant associated with the business are
tax deductible
, but you do need quality products to be able to function properly. So basic start up costs for a virtual assistant would be as follows:
A good quality computer with proper internet connection, not dial up, even a laptop for when you will be doing your working down at the local cafe. Associated with computer costs you will need to purchase antivirus software.
A good quality printer to handle high volume of work. A fax machine and scanner or I have a printer, fax, scanner, photocopier all in one unit.
Office furniture such as desk, chair, filing cabinet, shelving.
(remember you can purchase good new and used hardware and office equipment from eBay. Great for transcribers of all sorts and digital headphones, foot pedals, you name it.
Click Here to go to eBay!!
Business start up costs for a virtual assistant associated with registering your business name or company name, depending on how you wish to set up your business (talk to your accountant up front on the best way to approach this for your particular circumstances).
Insurance costs - depending on what exactly your line of business is or which country you are in, you may need various insurances. Some insurances are mandatory depending on how you structured your business and some are not. I won't name the insurances as their names change depending on which country you are operating out of, but examples of insurances that may be required are:
- insurances to cover you if you give advice to clients,
Business cards, stationery, printing of letterheads. These can all be done online now. I don't suggest printing out your own and cutting them out, unfortunately this is not a professional look. To start off with check out Vista Print for
FREE four-colour business cards! A $149 FREE gift!
Also for customised logos, check out logojeez.com
Another great online place to get your customised logos is LogoMaker
And check out
who are very very well priced for business cards and all your stationery needs. They deliver worldwide.
You may wish to set up a website for your business and these costs can include outsourcing the website set up process, hosting costs, domain name registration and renewal costs, or better still setting up your own virtual assistant website the way this website was set up, the easy, smart and cheapest way through
Site Build It!
with no website building experience at all. Start up costs for a virtual assistant wanting to set up a website are very low by using SBI!.
Through SBI! you get a combined site building, hosting and marketing package. You are taught to build a website easily with no html or programming skills needed as part of your advertising strategy and you will want to solicit responses to your site. Therefore search engine placement will be very important and you need to incorporate proper search engine optimisation (SEO) concepts in building your site. (SEO) means designing your site in such a way that you come up higher on the search engine search results. This is all part of building your site through SBI!
You also need a website to show you are professional, to attract clients, to advertise, to update your information which is accessible 24/7 and it's good for customer service.
Purchase of record keeping software such as an accounting package, but I when starting out you can probably use an Excel spreadsheet for your accounting needs. My accountant finds this quite sufficient (I still only use an Excel spreadsheet).
Purchase of any other software package that you may need to purchase depending on what your niche as a virtual assistant is and what you specialise in, ie: transcription software that is not free, specific software for graphic design type work if that's your niche, etc. See
transcription business start up costs
for more info on this niche area.
Any forms and templates for your VA business that you may wish to purchase. There are two avenues I found to purchase forms individually or as a bundle; forms, contracts, agreement, templates, you name it to help you in your business. All very well priced. Visit either:Elite Office Support
The Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce
Set up of fax line and/or another phone line through your phone provider if you think you will be spending a lot of time on the phone. I personally do not have this as my phone time is minimal and clients understand that I work from home and family background noise doesnt bother them.
But if you think you will be spending lots of time on the phone doing virtual receptionist work for instance, then I recommend looking into setting up another phone line in your study or better still cheaper start up costs for a virtual assistant can be attained by downloading something like Skype
What is Skype? - it's a little piece of software that lets you make free calls over the Internet by allowing users to make superior quality voice calls to other Skype users for free and to landlines and mobiles worldwide for the price of a local call. There is also a voicemail feature available for a small fee.
Or you you check out RingCentral.com
Get a MyFax Number
These are all great very economical options these days pursued by home businesses in lieu of standard phone and fax lines, and they require no hardware or software.
Set up of post office box. It is not recommended to have your home's physical address on your business cards and letterhead. It's better to have the post office box set up although it may be a bit of a trip to your local post office.
Marketing and advertising
costs, but some marketing and advertising is free.
Training
to be a virtual assistant and virtual assistant
certification
certification. These are optional start up costs for a virtual assistant.
Joining fees for any reputable job banks are also optional start up costs for a virtual assistant, such as
HomeJobStop
for example, which is a leading work from home job bank that do have contract jobs for VAs worldwide. They are offering a lifetime membership of US$18 to access the job bank at the moment, with a free ebook included in the price.There is also
Virtual Assistants
who are a reputable virtual assistant job bank with legitimate fresh jobs updated daily for a small yearly fee or you can pay by the month as well. They are also a virtual assistant outsourcing staffing agency and a directory for you to list your buisness in as well.
And also check out
Jobs-From-Home
which is another legitimate work from home database that you can access for a small yearly fee. They tell me they have lots of virtual assistant opportunities listed in their database. The jobs are suitable for VAs worldwide.
In fact I'm finding more virtual assistant staffing agencies and job banks, some free to join and some not and I've listed them at
virtual assistant employment companies
Purchase of any virtual assistant
Ebooks
relevant to starting up as a VA or more niche specific. These costs are optional.
There are of course ongoing stationery costs and even problem costs such as equipment breaking down, etc.
And remember start up costs for a virtual assistant and ongoing costs are expenses in your business, so they do provide great benefit to you at tax time.
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