Question 1

How does client billing at Virtalent work?

Accepted Answer

It's useful to understand how clients at Virtalent are billed, as well as what you need to do when sending us your monthly invoice.

You can watch the video below or turn to the PDF portal guide for a detailed explanation about this.

Remember, clients are billed on a monthly subscription, based on the date they created their account with us. So whilst you invoice us in line with each calendar month, the billing dates of your clients may be scattered throughout the month.

Clients Are Billed Monthly

The date that a client formally creates their account with Virtalent is known as their first "billing date".

Clients are billed on this date, every month, unless they tell us otherwise. For example, they could be billed every 15th of the month.

Unused Time Rolls Over

If you don't use all of the time available on the client's account, it will roll over.

Unused hours will only roll over to the next billing period - the don't continue to roll over indefinitely. Check the client's Account History to see if you have any hours to use, before they expire!

Extra Hours Are Available

The client's remaining balance doesn't necessarily indicate the only remaining time you have to use, before you need to stop.

If the balance runs out, the portal will automatically trigger an automatic top-up of 'extra hours'. Accounts are usually topped up in small increments (+ 2 hours, for example), so that you can continue working. Just ensure your client is happy with the amount of time you are logging and you have discussed this aspect with them - most will be happy for you to use your judgement here.

Check The Portal

You'll always find a summary of the client's account - including hours used so far and those still available - via the Task Portal.

If your client needs a more detailed breakdown of any time logged by you to their account, they can find this in the portal using their own login to the system, or alternatively head to the TIME tab to export a PDF or Excel report to send to them.

Question 2

What are Virtalent's contact details?

Accepted Answer

Virtalent's registered address is Virtalent Ltd, Front Suite - 1st Floor, Charles House, 148-149 Great Charles Street, Birmingham, B3 3HT.

This address can also be used for your invoices, for example.

Our main phone number is 0330 120 0477.

This phone number is attended to by a Virtual Receptionist, who will try to pass through the call to the relevant team member if they are available. If they aren't available, they'll take a message and pass it on - we'll then call you or the client back ASAP.

Your client will have the email address of their Client Success Manager.

Both you and the client can also email support@virtalent.com.

Internally, if you are the one looking to get in touch, you can usually get a quick reply from Slack!

Question 3

How will I hear about new client opportunities?

Accepted Answer

For more detailed guidance, take a look at the e-book - Securing Your First Client.

Opportunities Channel

As a growing, it can be quite difficult to keep on top of everyone’s individual (and naturally ever-changing) availability - both the hours you would like to work at Virtalent each month and those already taken up by clients. It can also be tricky to know exactly who is the very best person in the team to support each new client, with each of their very specific needs - this could be anything from an interest in yoga, to advanced skills in Excel, to years of experience doing something very specific in WordPress. There are endless possibilities!

Therefore, we have created a Slack channel - #opportunities - where we post briefs for any new clients looking to be matched with a Virtalent VA.

This brief will detail any key information you need to know, so you can decide whether the opportunity is for you or not.

Submitting Your Interest

To put yourself forward for consideration, you’ll need to fill in a short form. It takes just a few minutes. You’ll be asked to:

Provide your name and Virtalent email address (this is used by our internal system).
The “Opportunity ID number” which will appear in the brief.
Most importantly, give us the headlines on why you feel YOU are the very best choice for that client, based on who and what they are looking for. This doesn’t need to be more than a list of bullet points - just point us in the right direction!

We’ll leave the opportunity open until we feel a healthy number of people in the team have applied (we expect this to be 2-4 people). We expect to be able to leave it open until the next working day, but this will depend on how much interest is in each individual brief.

This is not “first come, first serve”. We would ask that you please submit your interest in a reasonable time frame so we can, in turn, make our recommendation to the client in a timely manner. But no priority is given to whoever happens to apply first.

As you know, this is not how we do things at Virtalent.

Our Client Engagement Manager will then make a decision on who - for that particular opportunity - is going to be put forward. We’ll let you know if you have been put forward, or if we would prefer to keep you available for another client. Once a decision has been made, we’ll close the opportunity and so delete it from the Slack channel.

We will consider everything from your skills and experience, your other clients at Virtalent, your availability, your personal interests, your personality, and so much more. If you are not selected, this is purely because someone else simply happens to be a better “match” for that particular client and the particular role they are looking for you to fill. Please do not take this personally - there will be many, many other opportunities, and, ultimately, this process will serve both you and any new clients better going forward.

If you are looking to work with a new client but aren’t already in the channel, please join it.

Simply click the (+) icon next to Channels -> Browse channels -> #opportunities.

If you ever decide you are ‘at capacity’, please leave the channel so you don’t feel pestered by the notifications. You can rejoin again any time!

Question 4

How do I use the Task Portal?

Accepted Answer

We have put together substantial documentation about the portal - it's best to take a read through this.

You can login to the portal at virtalentportal.com.

You can find the PDF guide here.

There is also a Youtube playlist covering key aspects of the portal - you can find these videos here.

Question 5

Can I share my CV with my client?

Accepted Answer

You'll never need to share your CV with a client at Virtalent

As soon as you joined the team, we will have created a Virtalent-branded profile for you containing a summary of your career experience and skills.

Your client will have already been sent this profile as part of our 'matching process', but they can also see this profile by heading to the 'Team' tab within the Task Portal (and clicking 'View Profile' next to your name).

If your client feels that they need more information than this, please feel free to explain what it is they feel they need to know. If this still doesn't work, let us know!

Question 6

Do you have any recommendations for sending greetings cards and gifts?

Accepted Answer

Your client might ask you to arrange gifts and cards for people in their business or personal life - whether that's an important customer or a milestone birthday. Here's our recommendations!

Please let us know if you have any others so we can add these below.

Greetings cards

We love Curious Pancake who will (beautifully!) handwrite greetings cards and send directly to the recipient. This can often feel more personal than a printed card.
Thortful are a great alternative to Moonpig - they're not handwritten, but have a huge selection of cards created by different designers. Many are very funny!
Card Factory now offer personalised cards. Many are very high quality and great value for money!
There's also Moonpig and Funky Pigeon.

Flowers

We also like to use:

Other ideas

Hampers are often a popular choice and for the ultimate luxury, Harrods will delivery directly for you.
Marks and Spencer offer some slightly more budget-friendly options too.

Question 7

Can I meet my client in-person?

Accepted Answer

At Virtalent we have a deliberate “remote-first” culture that we’re incredibly proud of. This means that everyone, from our Client Success Manager through to our accountants in Staffordshire, work together 100% online. We haven't had an office since we launched the company in 2014!

It's rare for most clients to meet their VA in-person too.

However, we do appreciate that you might like to meet your client in person at some point, especially if you have worked with each other for some time.

We don't openly advertise this to new clients, but if you have already started working with a client and you feel meeting with them would be beneficial, we are happy for this to happen.

Please remember, however:

Please let your Client Success Manager know this is happening, so that we are aware.
Both you and your client must be happy with this arrangement. Meeting with a client is in not compulsory or something you 'should' do - it is optional. We are an online-only service and so your client should not expect you to do this.
The time you spend traveling (door-to-door) and meeting with the client must be logged to their account. This is time that you can't spend working on other tasks for other clients (or doing anything else), so we feel this is a fair approach. Please ensure you make your client aware of this and that this is agreed beforehand.
You'll need to ask the client reimburse any reasonable travel costs you incur. Please try to estimate these in advance of your meeting and let your client know what to expect, then upload the expense to the portal as soon as possible (then simply add it to your next invoice so we can reimburse you).
You should not be meeting with a client on a regular basis. This should be a Christmas party, a rare in-person 'catch up' or an important annual meeting, not a regular weekly meeting with all other staff.
You should not be working per se. You shouldn't be re-organising a client's filing system or distributing flyers at a conference, for example. The emphasis is on meeting with the client.

Please speak with your Client Success Manager about the meeting if you are unsure.

Question 8

Can I use extra hours, above my client's monthly plan? How does this work?

Accepted Answer

Yes, the portal is designed to allow you to log more time than is available in the client's balance.

You can watch the video below to understand how 'extra hours' work, or alternatively head to page 15 of the PDF portal guide.

Key Points

If you're client's balance hits zero, the portal will automatically top-up their account with more time for you to use. You can see the preference they have set inside their Billing Preferences (head to the TASKS tab inside the portal).
Just because they have set this preference, doesn't necessarily mean you can log time as you see fit. Some clients are happy for you to do this, others want to stick closer to their budget. Make sure you're aware of how they want you to approach the use of 'extra hours'. How much time are they happy for you to log per month?
If your client regularly uses many more hours than their plan, it could make sense for them to move up to the next plan Virtalent offers. Your Client Success Manager will be able to advise your client in this scenario - just let us know if you feel this is the case.

Question 9

What tools should I use to communicate with my client?

Accepted Answer

You should communicate with each client, however works best for them (and you!).

There is no need to only use your Virtalent email account, if this doesn't work well for the client - in fact, most clients would prefer to set up a company email address for you to use in any case

The only 'rule' we have here is that you must never use a personal email account (or an email account for your own VA business) to communicate with a client - this risks breaching your insurance cover and your legally-binding contract with Virtalent, as we cannot guarantee that data is stored in your own email account is done so securely, and abides by GDPR guidelines.

Always communicate (and create user accounts for any software you use with the client) with your Virtalent email address or an email address provided to you.

Points To Consider

There are a lot of options out there! So, before picking a particular software platform to use, try to first think:

What tools does this client already use? - It's usually better to use tools that your client is already familiar with and has adopted, so long as they work well for them already.
What communication style do they have? - Some clients prefer short phone calls, whereas some prefer to write everything out in an SMS or email. Some prefer to fire out a WhatsApp voice note whilst they are walking the dog!
How do they like to delegate? - Again, are you sharing a to-do list in TickTick or other to-do list software, or is everything done in a set weekly meeting? The tool you choose to communicate should align nicely with this.

Our Recommendations

Zoom

Zoom is now widely-regarded as the 'go-to' video conferencing tool for smaller businesses and teams. Many remote businesses are now using Zoom for all their audio-only calls too!

Jitsu (free, open-source)

Jitsu is a a free (open-source) Zoom alternative.

Skype

One of the most established platforms, and a name most people will already recognise. Skype is free and easy to use. Meetings are limited to 50 attendees.

Microsoft Teams

MS Teams is geared more towards larger businesses (hence "Teams"), so you can accomodate up to 250 people in a meeting. It's asy to share files, screens and chat during meetings. It's also free and linked to Skype!

Google Hangouts

If your client also uses Gmail or G Suite, like we do at Virtalent, you can hop on a quick phone or video call or message each other (like Slack) within your Gmail inbox too. Take a look here.

Slack

We love using Slack internally to send quick notes. You can integrate G Drive and other software, so sharing files becomes very easy too. You can also use it for audio calls!

CloudApp

We also love CloudApp. CloudApp is free - it's a great way to share screenshots or record your screen (video or GIF), then annotate what you need to show!

Shift

If you are switching between several different inboxes and email addresses for clients, take a look at Shift. You can see everything in one place, and choose which account you want to reply from. It certainly makes the juggling a little bit easier!

The Phone!

Often a subject that would take a number emails to be resolved could be fixed with a quick phone call. It's often much more efficient than waiting for a reply!

Question 10

How do I report IT issues? [Portal, email, etc.]

Accepted Answer

If you are having any IT issues, including with the portal, please first contact your Client Success Manager (you can email support@virtalent.com).

Stuck? Let Us Help!

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