Comments for Home Office Warrior

Comment on Keeping Track of Virtual Assistant Hours by Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:05:35 +0000

Tina,

Due to the nature of your article about time tracking for virtual assistants, I think would be appropriate to mention TSheets as a solution. Personal accounts are free, so for VAs or freelancers it’s perfect.

Just wanted to bring it to attention here as some people may be looking for specific features other time trackers don’t have.

TSheets.com - Time Tracking

Comment on Keeping Track of Virtual Assistant Hours by Karen

Karen — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:18:58 +0000

Hi Tina,

Fanurio http://www.fanuriotimetracking.com is another tool designed for home offices. It helps with the less appealing aspects of freelancing like keeping track of time and invoicing. It’s a useful application, with a user-friendly interface.

Comment on Keeping Track of Virtual Assistant Hours by Jennifer Goodwin

Jennifer Goodwin — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:52:42 +0000

We still can’t find something that will work with quickbooks online. The local QB had a nice timer feature but we had to create our own spreadsheet for tracking the time of all our VA’s. Every two weeks we enter it into Quickbooks for billing. Oh well…always looking for the solution.

Jennifer Goodwin - CEO
http://www.internetGIRLfriday.com
“Specializing in Cutting Edge Social Marketing & Services for Virtual Practices & Internet Entrepreneurs”

Comment on Keeping Track of Virtual Assistant Hours by Danielle Keister

Danielle Keister — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:58:01 +0000

Clients can demand all they want. It’s extremely important for Virtual Assittants to make sure clients understand the nature of their relationship with a Virtual Assistant. VAs are not employees. They don’t keep hours or report time to clients in that manner. If a Virtual Assistant tracks hours, it should be only for their own business and billing purposes. And many Virtual Assistants these days don’t even track hours at all, but instead offer value-based retainer packages.

Comment on Telecommuting, Teleworking and going Green by Laurie

Laurie — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:37:29 +0000

I so LOVE this post!! Unfortunately my most recent employer is a govt organization and they love to hide behind the red tape as a reason to disallow telecommuting (even if some related govt offices DO allow telecommuting). I agree that telecommuting - even part-time - is a wonderful win-win situation for good employees though (and yes boot the bad ones right out the door).

Comment on Virtual Assistant Throw Down? by neverwinter

neverwinter — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:41:50 +0000

Do virtual assistant outfits use virtual phone systems like gotvmail and their ilk? If you or your clients do, what’s it like? I’m a bit of a newbie, so I’m not sure how it all works out just yet. Hey, maybe I should read some of those guides…

Comment on Telecommuting, Teleworking and going Green by Tina Hilton

Tina Hilton — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:56:30 +0000

Great post Grant! The point about employers wanting to ‘know’ their employees are working is a roadblock that virtual assistants deal with often. I always make the point that the Monday after Thanksgiving is the biggest online shopping day of the year…and where are all of these shoppers? At work, many of them in a traditional office. Being paid for it. At least if I shop online, I’m not charging my clients for the time when I’m doing it.

Comment on Telecommuting, Teleworking and going Green by Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:05:38 +0000

Great post. I completely agree with everything you are saying. Employers HAVE to start waking up to the idea that working from home is a good thing for business and for employees.

Thank you for the post, I look forward to reading more.

Kevin
20smoney.com

Comment on Telecommuting, Teleworking and going Green by William L Wilson

William L Wilson — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:44:48 +0000

I’m an attorney in a firm of 12 lawyers.

I work from home probably one day per week. I enjoy the quiet, and I am not one who is easily distracted by things at home anyway. Saving the gasoline is simply a bonus in my book (but it’s becoming a larger bonus).

One of the things that makes working from home a real option is that our voice mail system forwards a copy of each message via email. So, when a caller calls my office, he or she is told I am away from my desk (which is 100% true) and offered voice mail. The email shows up in my inbox a little while later, and I can return the phone call. (I dial *69 first so no one knows I’m calling from my home phone.)

My assistant and I can email documents back and forth as needed. It works out very well.

Comment on Home Office Snapshots — Eric Boehnisch-Volkmann (DEVONtechnologies, LLC) by Gordon R. Vaughan

Gordon R. Vaughan — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:22:12 +0000

Yeah, DEVONthink is a great product, and so far I’m still only using a small part of its capability.

It really helps to have a program powerful enough to truly organize your information. I finally feel like it’s time to dispense with most of the hardcopy notes, printouts, etc. that clog up my own home office!

Comment on Review of Onebox Virtual PBX Phone System by otherbizguy

otherbizguy — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:04:23 +0000

Ha, they should rename this blog entry “virtual PBX throwdown”! But, some really great insight here. I think it’s interesting how this landscape is changing but when you get right down it the differences between these providers to the average consumer can be pretty difficult to discern. I think there’s a few criteria in particular that I hold above the rest:

- reliability. You don’t want clients getting a busy sig or having their call dropped or mishandled.

- outsourcing. No offense, but companies that outsource live help outside the US are digging themselves a customer service grave. I haven’t seen a single successful model of this yet.

- professionalism. It all comes down to how you look. The first two criteria are included in this one but this is my catch-all rule. How easy is it to “brand” the virtual PBX? How professional does my company come across?

Last year I shopped around for a service and decided upon the aforementioned gotvmail for the issues above. They aren’t a Voip-based service so there’s no reliability issue there, and we got some strong referrals in this regard. Contrary to other comments, they also don’t outsource their customer service — it’s all US-based, and very user-friendly. And the price tag seemed more than reasonable.

Another thing to bear in mind is how important a live receptionist is to your company. I went with gotvmail because I prefer an automated forwarding system; in my experience they’re more efficient. I’ve heard good things about onebox but one turn-off was their live receptionist help, which I believe is outsourced (I don’t know this for a fact though)? Can anyone comment on that?

Comment on Review of Onebox Virtual PBX Phone System by marcus spritely

marcus spritely — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:17:55 +0000

VirtualPBX.com is our favorite. They will let you port both local and toll free numbers to them or away from them.
Besides which - they look to be the cheapest for the soho brand.
They include dial by name directory, email delivery and lots of stuff the others charge for. We love the SmartID for caller ID. Allows me to have a custom caller ID displayed showing the call is from VirtualPBX and the end users caller ID - all before I even answer the call. The price is 9.99 a month without commiting to anything more than 1 month of service. They will charge more as you grow for things like ACD.

Comment on Virtual Assistant Throw Down? by Jennifer "That Virtu

Jennifer "That Virtu — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:48:08 +0000

I agree. More affordable VA’s do not scare me into thinking I’ll be out of business soon. Most of us know that you get what you pay for is mostly true
I’ve had to put my leads into waiting list status so it’s not doom and gloom where I’m standing.

Jennifer Goodwin - CEO
http://www.internetGIRLfriday.com
“Specializing in Cutting Edge Social Marketing & Services for Virtual Practices & Internet Entrepreneurs”

Comment on Where to Connect with Grant - Home Office Warrior by Chuck Newton

Chuck Newton — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:45:29 +0000

I’m just plum tired out readin’ all of this. You’s just too many places at once’d. I’ve got to go take me a nap.

Comment on Tools of the Virtual Assistant Trade by Kendra

Kendra — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:48:52 +0000

Hey, Kendra from Box.net here - did you know that you can do a bunch of this all in one place?

Upload, share and collaborate on any of your files, edit photos, e-fax and e-sign documents, access them from anywhere (including your mobile device) and create an online work place - all on Box.net.

Check it out and let me know what you think, I am happy to answer any questions.

Take good care,
Kendra
kendra@box.net
www.box.net

Comment on Using Gmail to be more Productive — Part 1 by Sunday Home Office Round-Up: Taxes, Nooks & More Work-at-Home Dads - Home Office, Home-Based Business, Telework Reviews & Subject Matter Expert Consulting

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 08:56:07 +0000

[…] tool. He was underwhelmed when I said iGoogle and Gmail. Grant Griffiths at Home Office Warrior had Using Gmail to be more Productive — Part 1, a piece on making Gmail even more productive. Couldn’t agree more. In fact, when we head out […]

Comment on Review of Onebox Virtual PBX Phone System by Brandi Cummings

Brandi Cummings — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:48:08 +0000

Freedom800.com allows you to take your number with you as well as has all of their customer and technical support in house locally in Southern Cal.

Comment on Tools of the Virtual Assistant Trade by Oxiana

Oxiana — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:45:14 +0000

Wow! I feel like I just got the entire list of backoffice goodies all in one list. Some of these I already use, others are new to me. Thanks!

I just wanted to add, I use TSheets as an online timesheet and couldn’t be happier! just a thought for the list.

Comment on Tools of the Virtual Assistant Trade by Chris

Chris — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:30:59 +0000

Time Tracking and Billing: www.time59.com

Comment on Review of Onebox Virtual PBX Phone System by Jeannette

Jeannette — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:15:23 +0000

Kumar or anyone, do you know if any of those three let you take your phone number with you when you leave?

PS - I just phoned 800PBX and their service sounded VERY outsourced.