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It’s unusual times right now with current events forcing many folks to temporarily start working from home.  One thing I kept hearing over and over again is that many are having a hard time finding the tools and resources to help them easily and economically work from home.  So to help you to easily transition to your new work at home environment:

ACCOUNTING

Wave Financial

Wave Financial

We are big fans of wave finances and recommend it to virtual assistants. It is a free invoicing and accounting software that also has credit card processing and payroll services.

AUDIO EDITING & RECORDING

Audacity

We’ve been using Audacity for years. It is a free, open-source, cross-platform audio software. It is an easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder that works on both Windows and Mac.

CALENDAR SCHEDULING TOOLS

Calendly

Calendly

Calendly is an automated scheduling software that integrates with several popular calendars. You can send your personalized link to your clients so they can book calls with you during specific time slots. If you upgrade to the paid version you can integrate it with hundreds of other platforms and even collect payments.

Grab FREE ACCESS to 10 more tools and resources to help you easily transition to working at home.

Setmore

Setmore

Setmore is another scheduling app that you can use to manage and book appointments with your clients. Their free version even allows you to collect payments through Square.

CLOUD STORAGE & FILE SHARING

Dropbox

Dropbox

Dropbox is a file hosting service and we don’t think we could live without it. It allows you to store folders and files of all sizes and easily share them with your clients. They’ve introduced some new features over the years but we mainly just use it to store and share files.

Google Drive

Google Drive

Google Drive is similar to Dropbox in that it’s cloud storage that allows you to store, share and access files from any of your devices. Your first 15 GB of storage are free the last time we checked. We do prefer Dropbox over Google Drive, but they are both great options and personal preference.

COLLABORATION & COMMUNICATION

Boomerang for Gmail

Boomerang for Gmail

We love this extension for Gmail! It’s free and adds scheduled (delayed) sending which is a feature we miss from our Outlook days. It also allows you to set follow up reminders so you never forget to follow up to an important email.

Evernote

Evernote

Evernote is another app that we’ve been using for years on end. It allows you to take notes from anywhere, find stored information faster and share ideas with clients and your team. Best of all, it’s free!

Grab FREE ACCESS to 10 more tools and resources to help you easily transition to working at home.

Google Documents

Google Documents

We use Google Documents daily and love that we can edit documents at the same time as our entire team from our computer, tablet or phone.

FaceTime

FaceTime

If you own an iPhone, iPad or a Mac this is an easy, free way to connect with your clients via video or voice. You most likely already use it and don’t need to download any extra software.

 

Google Voice

Google Voice

If you live in the USA you can get a phone number for free and use Google Voice as your business line. It allows you to make calls through their app on your phone or on your computer. You can even send and receive texts with your Google Voice number.

Loom

Loom Free Screen Recording

Loom is a free screen and video recording software that allows you to record directly from your browser or their desktop app. Loom is a great tool to use to send your clients quick explanation videos and tutorials. It saves a lot of time going back and forth through email.

Slack

Slack

Slack is a popular collaboration platform where you can stay connected with your team and share files. There is a free version that should work for most and it has the ability to integrate with a variety of different apps.

Skype

Skype

Skype allows you to make free online calls, messaging and they offer affordable international calling to mobiles or landlines. You can even get a Skype phone number for an added fee so you can have a dedicated business phone number.

Grab FREE ACCESS to 10 more tools and resources to help you easily transition to working at home.

Spark Mail App

Spark Mail App

Virtual Assistants rave about the Spark Mail app as it keeps their inbox under control and best of all it’s free. It helps keep your inbox organized and clutter-free. You also have the ability to search, set reminders, schedule emails, communicate with your team and more.

Voxer

Voxer

Voxer is a free app that we use daily with our team, it’s kind of like a walkie-talkie with a record feature. You speak into the app and it records you and instantly sends the message to the recipient. You can use it to send text, images and videos as well but we just use the voice feature to communicate clearly with our team and clients.

Zoom Meeting

Zoom Meeting

We love Zoom and do all our client meetings on it. It’s free to use and has a ton of features that will help make your meeting a breeze. You can go live on video, audio-only, chat, screen share, draw on the screen, share your smartphone screen and more. With the free account, you can have up to 100 participants and run a meeting for 40 minutes.

CONTRACT MANAGEMENT

HelloSign

Hello Sign

HelloSign is a secure way to send contracts to your clients so that they can sign them online without the need to print it out, scan it and send it back to you. The free plan allows you to send 3 contracts a month which will be more than enough if you have long-term clients.

Tispr

Tipsr is an all-in-one management software that helps self-employed people manage their work more easily so they can get more done. You can track your time, send contracts, manage tasks and store files. They have a free forever plan that will work for most people starting a work from home business.

EMAIL MARKETING

MailChimp

MailChimp

MailChimp is an all-in-one marketing platform mainly used for email marketing. You can sign up to MailChimp for free and build your list up to 2,000 subscribers at no cost. It’s a great platform to use to start email addresses. As we always say, the money is in the list!

Grab FREE ACCESS to 10 more tools and resources to help you easily transition to working at home.

MailerLite

MailerLite

MailerLite is a simple email marketing platform that you can use to build your list. They allow you to have up to 1,000 subscribers before you have to start paying a fee.

FORMS & SURVEYS

Google Forms

Google Forms

Google Forms is free and easy to use, they have a few templates that you can use or create your own form or survey from scratch.

JotForm

Jotform

JotForm is what we typically use to create our forms. It’s easy to use and they offer a ton of different integrations to make collecting information easy. Their template library has a lot more to offer than Google Forms.

SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is a great online survey tool that allows you to get feedback and information from your clients and audience. The free version is limited but is still functional.

Wufoo Forms

Wufoo Forms

If you aren’t interested in either of the previous form builders mentioned, there’s also Wufoo Forms which allows you to create custom forms. Wufoo has a free plan for up to 5 forms and 100 responses.

GRAMMAR & WRITING ASSISTANT

Grammarly

Grammarly

Grammarly is a free writing app that helps you eliminate errors. We aren’t sure how we survived without it! Go download it now and become a better writer instantly.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Canva

Canva

Canva is a free online drag-and-drop graphic design program. It’s easy to use and they have templates for everything from Facebook graphics to blog banners. 

Photopea

Photopea

Photopea is an online photo editor that lets you edit photos, apply effects, filters, add text, crop or resize pictures. The interface looks a lot like Photoshop but its totally free!

Removebg

removebg

Removebg makes it easy to remove backgrounds from your photos. All you have to do is upload your image and it does all the work for you. It does a pretty good job too and often times we will use it over Photoshop.

Grab FREE ACCESS to 10 more tools and resources to help you easily transition to working at home.

PAYMENT PROCESSORS

PayPal

PayPal

It’s likely that have a PayPal account, and it’s still the most popular way to send and receive money for virtual assistants. It doesn’t cost anything to open an account but they do charge transaction fees. You can invoice your clients directly inside of PayPal so it makes it easy to receive money.

Stripe

Stripe
Stripe is an online credit card payment processing system. It is free to set up and like PayPal, they charge transaction fees. It’s available to use in several countries, you can look on their website to see if you can accept payments in your country. Stripe is our credit card processor of choice here at VAnetworking.
Square

Square

Square is another popular credit card processing app and you might have seen it at local businesses in your area. One of the main differences between Stripe and Square is that you can process payments online and in-person with Square. You can also set up their online booking system so your clients can schedule calls with you through your calendar. Square is only available in a few counties, you can see if it’s available in yours on their website.

PDF FORMATTING

PDFescape

PDFescape

PDFescape allows you to edit PDFs, create fillable forms and convert PDFs for free. If you are just starting out, this is a great tool as Adobe Acrobat Pro is a hefty line item in your budget. 

Smallpdf

Smallpdf

Smallpdf is an online software that allows you to edit and convert PDFs for free. It’s quick and easy to use.

NETWORKING

Meetup

Meetup

Meetup is a great place to find local networking groups and events. Try to find a few in your area to attend regularly, you’d be surprised by who you meet and might even gain a client or two.

VAnetworking’s Forum

Virtual Assistant Forum

Our Virtual Assistant forum has been around since 2003 and is the largest one online today with members from all over the world. It’s free to join, so pop on over and say ‘Hi’ or ask us a question to do with your business so we can help you.

VAnetworking’s Virtual Assistant Facebook Group

This Facebook Group is for Virtual Assistants to socialize, learn, share and engage. Join us and post a question about anything to do with your VA business and we will find the answer for you!

OUTSOURCING

VAnetworking’s Job Board

Virtual Assistant Job Board

Looking to work with a Virtual Assistant and expand your team? Post your job to VAnetworking’s job board for free and find the perfect VA for your business.

PASSWORD MANAGEMENT

LastPass

LastPass

We can’t even remember life before LastPass. It has been a huge timesaver for our business. LastPass is a password manager that stores all your passwords in the cloud. You access them with your one master password. So you’ll only ever have to remember one password. It’s free to use and if you want to upgrade to a paid account (very affordable) you can share your passwords with your team.

REMOTE ACCESS

Teamviewer

Teamviewer

Teamviewer is a handy piece of software, it allows you to access computers remotely from anywhere. If your client is having a tech issue you can just log right into their computer and fix it for them.

Grab FREE ACCESS to 10 more tools and resources to help you easily transition to working at home.

SCREEN RECORDING

Loom

Loom Free Screen Recording

Loom is a free screen and video recording software that allows you to record directly from your browser or their desktop app. Loom is a great tool to use to send your clients quick explanation videos and tutorials. It saves a lot of time going back and forth through email.

Screencast-O-Matic

Screencast-O-Matic

Screencast-O-Matic is a free screen recorder that you can use to capture any area of your screen with the option to add narration from your microphone and video from your webcam.

SOCIAL MEDIA SCHEDULING

Facebook Creator Studio or Publisher

You can schedule posts to your Facebook Business Page right inside of Facebook. Just go your ‘Publishing Tools’ on your page and you will see a spot to schedule them. You can also schedule posts in your Facebook Groups directly inside of your group.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is an online social media management program with both free and paid versions. You can use Hootsuite to post to multiple networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram. The free plan allows you to connect 3 social profiles and schedule 30 messages at a time. 

Later

Later

Later allows you to plan, schedule and analyze posts for Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. The free version has its limitations but should work for Virtual Assistants.

Planoly

Planoly

Planoly allows you to manage, plan and schedule your Instagram posts from both your computer and smartphone. It’s a great tool for Instagram management.

STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY & DESIGN ASSETS

Although we recommend purchasing all your stock photos, we’ve listed some free resources below. We purchase all our photos from DepositPhotos

123rf

123rf

Creative Market

Creative Market

Creative Market has over 3 million unique fonts, graphics, themes, photos, and templates designed by independent creators around the world. It isn’t a free site but they do give away 6 free designs assets a week. We recommend you sign up to their email list so you never miss a freebie.

DepositPhotos

DepositPhotos

DepositPhotos is a paid stock photos site and where we purchase all our photos. They send out free high-quality images each week so we added it to the list. Make sure to sign up for their emails so you get your free images each week.

Ivory Mix

Ivory Mix

Ivory Mix has over 550+ free styled stock photos for you to download. We love how feminine their photos are. They have a paid membership as well if you like their style.

Pexels

Pexels

Grab FREE ACCESS to 10 more tools and resources to help you easily transition to working at home.

Picjumbo

Picjumbo

Pixabay

Pixabay

Unsplash

Unsplash

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Choosing a project management system is all about personal preference, sign up to a few and see which one works best for you.

Asana

Asana

Asana is our top choice for project management and what we use here at VAnetworking. You can set up multiple workspaces and projects which makes managing multiple businesses a breeze. The free version will probably work just fine but they have some useful added features if you want to upgrade to a paid membership.

ClickUp

ClickUp

ClickUp is an all-in-one project management collaboration platform. We put it in the project management section as that is the feature we find VAs love the most.

Tispr

We’ve put Tispr in a few categories as it really is an all-in-one program. You can manage tasks, track your time, send contracts, and store files. They have a free forever plan that will work for most people starting a work from home business.

Grab FREE ACCESS to 10 more tools and resources to help you easily transition to working at home.

Trello

Trello

Trello is a visual project management tool that helps your organize your business. It’s a very popular one for VAs, check it out and see if it’s right for you.

TIME TRACKING

Google Spreadsheet

Spreadsheet for Time Tracking

Using a spreadsheet to keep track of your time is an old fashioned way but it’s free and it works. Just make a few columns, date, time and task and fill it in as you go. Make a copy of this spreadsheet and start using it right away.

Tispr

Ok, we promise this is the last time we will mention Tispr. It is an all-in-one program where you can track your time, send contracts, manage tasks and store files. They have a free forever plan that will work for most people starting a work from home business.

Toggl

Toggl is a popular free time tracker with powerful reports that works across multiple devices.

Toggl

TIME ZONE CONVERTERS

It’s fairly likely that you will have clients in time zones different than your own. It’s helpful to have a time zone converter so you can work more efficiently with your clients. Both of the time converters listed below work well and are free.

World Time Buddy

worldtimebuddy

This is an awesome tool to help share times of your meetings in the right time zone with the people you work with. Never miss another meeting because of time-zone discrepencies.

Time and Date

timeanddate converter

Another great free website to help you figure out the time and date no matter where you live. It even offers printable PDF Calendars if you ever require one for whatever business reason.

VIDEO CONFERENCING, MEETINGS & WEBINARS

FaceTime

FaceTime

If you own an iPhone, iPad or a Mac this is an easy, free way to connect with your clients via video or voice. You most likely already use it and don’t need to download any extra software.

FreeConferenceCall

freeconferencecall

This free conference call platform has been around for years. It isn’t mentioned much ever since Zoom came out but it’s still a good option to explore.

Skype

Skype

Skype allows you to make free online calls, messaging and they offer affordable international calling to mobiles or landlines. You can even get a Skype phone number for an added fee so you can have a dedicated business phone number.

Grab FREE ACCESS to 10 more tools and resources to help you easily transition to working at home.

Zoom Meeting

Zoom Meeting

We love Zoom and use it for all our client meetings and webinars. It’s free to use (although we have the paid version) and has a ton of features that will help make your next meeting or webinar a breeze. You can go live on video, audio-only, chat, screen share, draw on the screen, share your smartphone screen and more. With the free account, you can have up to 100 participants and run a meeting for 40 minutes.

What free tools can you not live without for your virtual assistant business?  Share it with us in the comments below. 

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