The 44 Best Virtual Assistant Software Tools in 2022

Most entrepreneurs learn to accept that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish every task. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably already come to terms with this harsh reality and made your first hire: a virtual assistant.

Virtual assistants can help you handle administrative tasks that clog up your workday — but only if they have the right tools. It’s important to find the right virtual assistant software to protect your time and get the most out of your investment. The right VA software can:

• Help accomplish work tasks more efficiently
• Automate repetitive work
• Track your assistant’s work time and activity
• Organize communication

The right software can even act as an assistant to a limited degree.

In this article, we recommend 40+ virtual assistant software tools to help you get the most out of your journey. Feel free to skip ahead to the sections you need.

Quick navigation

1. Communication
2. Video conferencing
3. Accounting and bookkeeping
4. Time tracking
5. Scheduling and appointments
6. Project management
7. Password management
8. File sharing and document management
9. Social media management
10. Operations and process documentation
11. Virtual assistant programs

Communication tools

It’s important to be able to reach your virtual assistant when you need them.

Emailing them is an option — but it’s not always the best one. Emails can get lost in the shuffle. Plus, an efficient virtual assistant probably doesn’t check their email constantly because that’s a productivity drain.

Sometimes you need a quick reply to a short message.

These VA tools can help with communication.

Slack

Slack is a team communication tool used by more than 750,000 businesses.

The main idea behind Slack is that it replaces email communication and eliminates all the time wasting that comes with it.

Slack’s main feature is channels, which are essentially group conversations that revolve around a set topic.

Channels give your VA and the other people on your team an organized way to communicate.

You can include your assistant in the conversations they need to follow without cluttering their inbox with irrelevant chatter.

Adding your virtual assistant to the company Slack gives your team a way to contact them directly. If you’re out of office and someone needs a document or information, they can easily reach your VA for help.

Slack has other useful features like video calls and file sharing too.

Pricing

• Free: $0 USD/mo
• Pro: $6.67 USD/mo
• Business+: $12.50 USD/mo​​
• Enterprise Grid: Contact sales

---

---

Flock

Flock calls itself a team messenger and collaboration platform. It’s similar to Slack but places a heavier emphasis on productivity features.

A few standout features include voice notes, to-do lists, and reminders. These can help you delegate tasks to your VA more easily.

Pricing

• Starter: $0 (1-20 members)
• Pro: $4.50 per user/month (20-100 members)
• Enterprise: Contact sales (100+ members)

Chanty

Chanty is a team communication and collaboration solution designed to help teams such as your team of virtual assistants, to stay organized and connected.

This virtual assistant software allows you to import team data and message history from tools such as Slack and Flock, which makes migration easier if you decide you need to switch.

Chanty integrates with dozens of popular apps, allowing you to improve your team’s collaboration and boost productivity. It’s less expensive than Slack and offers more storage and faster file transfers.

If you’ve ever been frustrated while trying to find old messages in Slack or Flock, you’ll like Chanty a lot better. It searches your entire history from the first day you used the program, so you won’t lose information because you had that conversation too long ago.

Pricing

• Free: $0 forever
• Business: $3 per user/month

Microsoft Teams

Formerly known as Skype for Business, Microsoft Teams is Microsoft’s communication solution for businesses.

It enables remote teams to chat, have audio and video calls, as well as schedule meetings.

You can use this software to share files for real-time collaboration with your VA.

This is a good option for people who already work within the Microsoft ecosystem.

WhoBot makes Microsoft Teams stand out. It’s an AI chatbot that helps you find specific information about other members of your team. You can ask it questions about organizational structure or even use it to find a subject matter expert in a specific area.

That’s powerful if your virtual assistant needs to reach out to someone else at your company for help.

The video calling features are robust and will come in handy if you need to invite your virtual assistant to any larger team meetings.

Pricing

• Microsoft Teams: Free
• Essentials: $4.00 per user/month
• Microsoft 365 Business Basic: $5.00 per user/month
• Microsoft 365 Business Standard: $12.50 per user/month

Video conferencing tools

Virtual assistants are rarely available face-to-face. That doesn’t mean you have to restrict your communication to chats and emails, though. Video calls are a great way to handle more complex conversations.

A lot of virtual assistants suggest having a weekly call to catch up and align on priorities. Instead, you might want to take a step further with video chatting.

Luckily, there are plenty of video conferencing tools out there. Ask your virtual assistant if they have a preference and consider how a particular software fits in your current tech ecosystem. Or, read our breakdown of some of the more popular programs:

Zoom

Zoom is a video conferencing software solution that has exploded in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic. It’s used worldwide to collaborate, hold meetings, and host virtual events.

The Zoom platform consists of a number of products that include group chat, video webinars, virtual conference rooms, and an enterprise phone system.

It supports HD video and audio, recording, transcripts, and screen sharing.

The platform also has advanced privacy and security features (such as waiting rooms, passcodes, and user authentication) that ensure you’ll be able to discuss sensitive information during calls.

They’ve put a heavier emphasis on security after “Zoom bombing” made headlines, and now the platform is better equipped with privacy and security features.

Pricing

• Basic: Free
• Pro: $14.99/month/license
• Business: $19.99/month/license
• Enterprise: $19.99/month/license

GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting is another popular video conferencing platform. It includes all the features you’d expect like conference calling, video conferencing, and screen sharing.

GoToMeeting is similar to Zoom in features and functionality, but larger companies might prefer GoToMeeting because it supports much larger meeting sizes at a slightly lower price point.

You can use this platform to hold video calls with your virtual assistant on most devices and operating systems.

Pricing

• Basic: $24 per user/month, billed annually
• Standard: $29 per user/month, billed annually
• Premium: $39 per user/month billed annually

Google Meet

Google Meet is Google’s video conferencing software that was designed to replace Google Hangouts.

Like most video chat programs, it’s easy to schedule and launch calls. You can choose to record or share your screen, files, and links.

One feature that’s unique to Google Meet is the option to add real-time, software-generated captions to video calls. This is a great accessibility feature that can add an extra layer of clarity to your conversation.

Pricing

• Google Meet: $0
• Google Workspace Individual: $7.99 per month
• Google Workspace Enterprise: Contact sales

Zoho Meeting

Zoho Meeting is another reliable video conferencing tool to chat with your VA.

This software puts a big emphasis on taking care of users’ security and privacy. It includes features like locked meetings, recording privileges, and audio and video sharing consent.

It integrates with Zoho’s suite of office and productivity apps. This makes it the perfect video conferencing solution for those that are committed to the Zoho ecosystem.

Pricing

• Free: $0 (2 meeting participants and 10 webinar attendees)
• Meeting: $3 per host/month (10 participants)
• Webinar: $19 per organizer/month (25 attendees)

Accounting & bookkeeping tools

Most business owners don’t enjoy bookkeeping, but it’s a necessary part of running a business.

Accounting and bookkeeping solutions allow you to safely delegate this task.

For the items on this list, you should own the tool yourself and create a login for your virtual assistant. It’s unwise to ask a third party to handle your bookkeeping in their own software.

Choose a program that you’re comfortable using on your own. It’s important that you can access and understand your own financial data.

QuickBooks

QuickBooks is the most popular accounting software and primarily caters to small and mid-sized businesses.

You can use QuickBooks as your virtual assistant software to track your expenses, create invoices and quotes, and generate detailed reports. You can also sync it with your bank account to automatically track income and expenses.

All the information is stored in the cloud and encrypted to ensure that only you and the people you authorize can access your financial information. You can download reports on your own or ask your virtual assistant to send you updates at regular intervals.

Pricing

• Simple Start: $25/month (1 user)
• Essentials: $50/month (1-3 users)
• Plus: $80/month (1-5 users)
• Advanced: $180/month (1-25 users)
• Live Bookkeeping: Contact for custom pricing

Xero

Xero is an online accounting solution designed for small businesses.

You can use it to reconcile bank transactions, send invoices, accept payments, pay your bills, and create expense claims.

Xero also supports bank feeds. That means you can automatically import transactions and categorize them as you see fit.

It can produce financial statements and balance sheets at the click of a button, allowing you to automate your financial reporting. This is a handy software for your VA to keep you updated on a weekly basis.

Pricing

• Early: $12 per month
• Growing: $34 per month
• Established: $65 per month

FreshBooks

According to its website, FreshBooks focuses on serving small businesses.

It has plenty of robust features including invoicing, expense and time tracking, and reporting. You can also use it to accept payments and collaborate on projects.

FreshBooks has a web app, as well as accompanying iOS and Android apps you can use to track expenses on the go. If you need your virtual assistant to manage your field team’s personal expenses, this might be a smart choice.

Pricing

• Lite: $15/month (5 billable clients)
• Plus: $25/month
• Premium: $50/month
• Select: Custom enterprise pricing

Zoho Books

Zoho Books is a cloud-based accounting and bookkeeping software aimed at small and mid-sized businesses. Apart from tracking expenses, you can use it to send estimates, create invoices, and accept payments.

There’s also the option of sending automated reminders to customers who haven’t paid you yet. This is a particularly useful feature that can save a lot of time.

Zoho Books has plenty of other useful features, including contact management, time tracking, and inventory management.

Pricing

• Free: $0
• Standard: $20 per organization/month
• Professional: $50 per organization/month
• Premium: $70 per organization/month

Wave

Wave brands itself as financial software designed for entrepreneurs.

It has all the features you’d expect from an accounting and bookkeeping solution. You can use it to track and manage income and expenses. Or, create professional invoices with your own branding.

Connect Wave to your bank account to import your expenses automatically. Alternatively, you can scan receipts using your smartphone and import expenses into the app that way. Wave’s 256-bit encryption ensures that your data is safe at all times.

Pricing

• Accounting: $0
• Invoicing: $0
  • No set-up fees, no hidden charges, no monthly fee
• Payroll: $35 monthly base fee
  • +$6 per active employee
  • +$6 per independent contractor paid
• Self-service: $20 monthly base fee
  • +$6 per active employee
  • +$6 per independent contractor paid

Time tracking tools

If you pay your virtual assistant an hourly rate, you need some kind of reliable time tracking tool to calculate their hours.

Good time tracking tools can also help you see how that time was used. This helps protect you from time theft.

Hourly or not, time tracking gives you valuable information that you can use to work more efficiently.

You can easily spot areas where your virtual assistant might need more information from you. It’s also obvious which tasks your virtual assistant is best at so you know to delegate similar responsibilities in the future.

Whether you’re new to time tracking or a time tracking veteran, check out Hubstaff.

Hubstaff

Hubstaff tracks time and productivity. Use it to automate your virtual assistant’s timesheets so that you pay them accurately without the extra headache of manually logging hours. If you do pay hourly, you can manage timesheets and payments directly from the software. It even works for international payments through tools like PayPal and Wise.

It generates detailed reports that give you more visibility into how your VAs works. You can see valuable information like activity levels and the amount of time spent on specific apps and websites.

Managers can easily see who’s working on what project through a simple dashboard. If you need to dig deeper, the robust time reports give you all the details you need.

Hubstaff is also an excellent tool to help you manage your in-house team. Use it to maximize your productivity by automating much of your admin work.

Pricing

• Free: $0 (for one user only)
• Starter: $7 per user/month (starts at $14; includes 2 users)
• Pro: $10 per user/month (starts at $20; includes 2 users)
• Enterprise: Get a customized plan

---

---

Scheduling & appointments tools

It’s common for virtual assistants to handle scheduling. If your assistant manages your schedule, they’re probably not doing it in a paper planner anymore.

Modern calendar software helps you balance your personal and professional time. Here are some of the software you and your virtual assistant should consider to help handle your appointments.

Google Calendar

Google Calendar is the free scheduling tool from G Suite.

It’s a popular tool because it’s easy to use and it’s automatically included with your gmail address. If you have multiple accounts (like a personal email and a work email) you can sync calendars easily to get a complete picture of your day.

To help keep people connected, you can create a shared calendar and allow people to sync it to their personal calendar. Use that feature to publish social events or meetings that your entire company is welcome to attend.

All events added to Google Calendar can be color-coded, which helps you understand your daily tasks and responsibilities at a glance.

You can also share your Google Calendar with other people. That makes it easy for your virtual assistant to manage your schedule.

Pricing

Free with Gmail accounts

Calendly

Calendly is one of the most popular online scheduling tools. Instead of sending dozens of back and forth emails to find open time for a meeting, just use Calendly.

All you need to do is send the recipient your Calendly link. They can then book a meeting at a time that works for them. It detects the recipient’s time zone and displays your availability in their time.

Calendly supports advanced features such as time buffers, daily meeting limits, and minimum scheduling notice. You can also collect credit card and PayPal payments to help consultants and salespeople.

Pricing

• Basic (Free): $0
• Essentials: $8 per seat/month
• Professional: $12 per seat/month
• Teams: $16 per seat/month

SimplyBook.me

SimplyBook.me is an online booking system for service industries. With this tool, you can accept bookings on your own website or on theirs. Using their website is the easiest option, but connecting the tool to your own website protects your branding and professionalism.

SimplyBook.me lets you accept payments for bookings with PayPal or Stripe — and supports both email and SMS notifications. Other cool features include intake forms, coupons, and gift cards.

Pricing

• Free: $0 per month
• Basic: $8.25 per month
• Standard: $24.90 per month
• Premium: $49.90 per month

Setmore

Setmore is a great booking software along the lines of Calendly and SimplyBook.me.

It supports SMS and email reminders to reach your customers more reliably. You can accept payments through integrations with Square and Stripe.

Setmore has both Android and iOS apps, allowing you or your virtual assistant to manage bookings from your smartphone. It’s a helpful feature when you need to manage meetings on the road.

Pricing

• Free: $0/user/month (up to 4 users)
• Premium: $12/user/month (up to 2 users)
• Pro: $9/user/month (3+ users)

Project management

For many startups and entrepreneurs, a good project management tool is all the virtual assistance they need. Project management software helps you:

• Identify what to work on next
• Decide who to assign tasks to
• Analyze data to see what projects are at risk of going over budget
• Discover how your team can become more productive

To pick the right tool for your team, think about what you need it to do now — but also in the future. Choose a tool that can grow with you so you don’t waste time migrating data in the middle of a growth phase.

Hubstaff Tasks

Hubstaff Tasks makes Agile project management easy and intuitive. One of its best features is the sprint view which helps everyone decide what they should work on next.

Set up your workflows so that tasks are automatically assigned to the right people. Use automated standups to cut down on meetings without sacrificing your access to information.

Once you’re set up, the automated features in Hubstaff Tasks give you back hours of productive time every week.

This is a good choice of software to grow with you. It’s free for up to five users, so it’s a great software for a small team of virtual assistants. As you expand, the per-user price is lower than competitors with the same quality.

It’s simple to get set up and powerful enough to keep your growing team organized and productive.

Pricing

• ​​Free: $0 (limited to five users)
• Premium: $5 per user (unlimited users)

Asana

Asana helps teams get organized, but it can be overwhelming for first-time users. If you already have project management experience, you’ll love the free version’s robust feature set.

The team management features are particularly useful. By creating teams within Asana, you can assign different permissions to each. Everyone has the access they need while you protect any sensitive data.

This is another good tool for virtual assistants. You can start with the free version to get the hang of it and expand to the pro version when you’re ready.

Pricing

• Basic: $0
• Premium: $13.49 per user/month
• Business: $30.49 per user/month

ClickUp

With project management, planning, and tracking features, ClickUp aims to be the “one app to replace them all.” With a wide array of features, it’s capable of doing just that.

Like other project management tools, ClickUp allows you to create tasks, set goals, and import data with powerful integrations. However, it’s the Docs feature that really stands out.

With Docs, you can create wikis, guides, and process documentation to share with everyone on your team. Then, connect them to tasks to access everything in one place. You can design anything from simple banners to complex code blocks.

Pricing

• Free: $0
• Unlimited: $9 per member/month
• Business: $19 per member/month
• Business Plus: $29 per member/month
• Enterprise: Contact sales

ProofHub

ProofHub helps teams of all sizes collaborate and complete projects on time. You can build custom workflows and notify team members with announcements, chats, and mentions when it’s their turn to contribute.

Then, switch seamlessly between Table, Kanban, or Gantt chart view to see your projects from new perspectives. If a project is in danger of going over budget, notes, proofing tools, and reporting features can help you change course.

Pricing

• Essential: $50 per month
• Ultimate Control: $99 per month

Paymo

Paymo’s unique blend of task management, time tracking, and payroll automation make it one of the most versatile tools for VAs available.

Whether you’re assigning teams to task lists and Kanban boards or turning tracked time into timesheets, you can streamline the entire workforce management process. Integrations with your favorite third-party apps make it even more powerful.

Pricing

• Free: $0 per user/month (10 user limit)
• Small Office: $11.95 per user/month (no user limit)
• Business: $18.95 per user/month (no user limit)

Password management tools

Think about how many accounts you have right now. There’s social media, work tools, online stores, online banking, your utilities, club memberships, etc. In fact, you probably can’t even list every account you own from memory.

Your virtual assistant will need access to a lot of these accounts — but that doesn’t mean you have to share sensitive password information with them directly.

With a password manager, you’ll have a secure way to share password information with your VA without worrying about it falling into the wrong hands. Here are our recommendations for good password tools:

LastPass

LastPass saves all your passwords across every device you use. This can be extremely helpful if you’re working with a VA, but you should probably check out the LastPass blog for password sharing tips.

Install LastPass as a browser extension and it will automatically fill in usernames and passwords for you when you visit a website you commonly use.

If you change devices, you still have access to your password vault. Just log in to LastPass to automatically fill in your usernames and passwords. You can always retrieve your login information to enter it yourself, too.

Pricing

• Free: $0
• Premium: $3 per month
• Families: $4 per month

Dashlane

Dashlane works similarly to LastPass. You can save your login information across multiple devices. Or, have Dashlane create secure passwords for you and your virtual assistant with a few simple clicks.

As an added bonus, Dashlane will also autofill personal and payment information. That speeds up account registrations or checkout from online stores.

Dashlane syncs to all your devices so you can easily and securely access your accounts when you need them.

Pricing

• Team: $5 per user/month (billed annually)
• Business: $8 per user/month (billed annually)

Bitwarden

Like other tools on our list, Bitwarden is a password manager designed to store and share sensitive information across your organization. However, some robust reporting features make it stand out from the competition.

With Bitwarden Vault Health Reports, you can see password strength or identify any possible vulnerabilities or exposures. An affordable enterprise plan makes Bitwarden great for larger teams.

Pricing

• Teams + Businesses: $3 per user/month
• Enterprise organizations: $5 per user/month

Zoho Vault

Zoho Vault is yet another tool in the Zoho suite that cracks our list. As you might expect, Zoho Vault gives you basic password protection and storing options. You can also create your own folder hierarchy and sort passwords into categories.

Powerful integrations with tools like Azure, Dropbox, and ServiceNow help you create new logins and onboard employees with less hassle.

Pricing

• Free: $0
• Standard: $1 per user/month
• Professional: $5 per user/month (minimum 5 users)
• Enterprise: $8 per user/month (minimum 5 users)

NordPass

With NordPass, you can store all of your passwords in one central location — and even access them when you’re offline. Or, take security measures a step further by encrypting notes, credit card details, and shipping addresses.

NordPass is great if you work with a virtual assistant. You can share passwords with your VA online using an encrypted password vault. With biometric authentication, you can ensure only you have access to the full contents of the vault via fingerprint or face scan.

Pricing

• Free: $0
• Premium: $1.49 per month
• Family: Starts at $4.99 per month (up to 6 users)
• Business: Starts at $3.59 per month
• Enterprise: Contact sales for custom pricing

File sharing and document management tools

Are you still emailing files to your virtual assistant? That’s a waste of time.

There are plenty of file-sharing solutions you can use instead to streamline the document storage, sharing, and collaboration process. Check out these tools to edit and organize files in real-time:

Dropbox

Dropbox is one of the most popular file storage platforms in the world. It’s currently used by more than 500,000 businesses.

Originally branded as a cloud storage platform, Dropbox has expanded to include a set of tools that enable businesses to optimize their workflow. You can use it to store files, comment changes, and create drafts from one central location.

Pricing

• Basic: $0 (1 user)
• Plus: $11.99 per month (1 user)
• Family: $19.99 per month (up to 6 users)
• Professional: $19.99 per month (for individuals)
• Standard: $15 per user/month (for small teams)
• Advanced: $25 per user/month (for larger teams)

Google Drive

Google Drive allows you to store and share files, but it really shines as a collaboration tool. Teams can all work within the same document or spreadsheet without worrying about version control.

It’s part of the G Suite so it’s easy to manage access (you can share permissions via Gmail). Drive works best within the Google ecosystem, but you can also access it on all other major platforms via desktop, mobile, and tablet.

Google Drive includes all of these excellent document management tools:

• Docs for word processing
• Sheets for spreadsheets
• Slides for presentations
• Forms for questionnaires and feedback
• Other specialized apps

Pricing

• 15 GB: Free
• 100 GB: $1.99 per month
• 1 TB: $9.99 per month

Box

With unlimited storage, document management, and collaboration features, Box is suitable for both big and small businesses.

If you’re looking for robust security features, look no further. Box carefully guards your security and privacy with 256-bit encryption. Plus, you can lock files and control access on an individual level.

This is a great software if you need your virtual assistant to have access to only specific files and data.

Pricing

• Business: $20 per user/month
• Business Plus: $33 per user/month
• Enterprise: $47 per user/month
• Enterprise Plus: Contact for custom pricing

Zoho Docs

Zoho Docs is a document management platform that helps businesses create, store, and share a variety of different types of documents.

It supports more than 100 different file formats and enables you to collaborate on files in real-time.

Pricing

• Free: $0 (up to 5 users)
• Standard: $5 per user/month
• Premium: $8 per user/month

Social media management tools

In some cases, virtual assistants even help manage social media accounts. Of course, your VAs will need the right tools to effectively manage them all.

Social media management tools can help your virtual assistant:

• Schedule social media posts
• Engage with your followers more easily
• Analyze the performance of your social media campaigns

While you can give an assistant direct access to each of your social media accounts, it’s more difficult to manage them this way.

Each platform has a different interface that may be cumbersome to navigate. Twitter, for example, doesn’t have a built-in tool to schedule posts. Using a tool like the ones on this list can help your virtual assistant work more effectively to manage your brand.

Buffer

Buffer is a popular tool that helps you drive engagement on social media. They offer two main products: Publish and Analyze.

Publish allows you to schedule content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest all from one place. It’s especially useful if you want to visualize your overall social media strategy.

Your virtual assistant can use Publish to collaborate on content or seek approval before posting.

Analyze gives in-depth insights into your social media performance. You can see how you’re doing by platform or review your social media strategy as a whole.

This is another good way to utilize your virtual assistant. They can generate reports and call out any findings that you need to see.

Pricing

• Free: $0 per month/social channel
• Essentials: $6 per month/social channel

Hootsuite

With more than 18 million customers, Hootsuite is one of the most popular social media management platforms in the world. You can use it to schedule and manage content on all your social media pages.

The calendar view is a powerful way to see how your social media presence fits together across multiple platforms. Or, use the inbox feature to respond to messages from your social media followers across Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn from a single location.

You can also use Hootsuite to manage your social media ads across multiple platforms.

Pricing

• Professional: $49 per month (1 user)
• Team: $129 per month (3 users)
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing (5+ users)

Later

Later allows you to schedule social media posts and analyze their performance.

Originally developed as an Instagram marketing platform, Later now supports Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

As a tool originally built for Instagram, it offers the better features for that platform than its competitors. You can use Later to create shoppable Instagram feeds and clickable Instagram landing pages.

The Best Time to Post feature tells you when you should be publishing your social media posts for maximum engagement. Use it in combination with good testing procedures.

Pricing

• Free: $0
• Basics: $8 per month
• Starter: $15 per month
• Growth: $25 per month
• Advanced: $40 per month

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is an all-in-one platform. It has tools to help with each step of your social media strategy, from initial planning to analyzing results.

One of the hardest things about social media management is the need to respond quickly to questions and feedback. This tool helps solve that problem.

Like Hootsuite, Sprout Social has a universal inbox that receives messages from all the platforms you use. It also has tools to help you monitor and manage reviews.

Use the content calendar to schedule posts and collaborate with your virtual assistant or your team.

This is a popular tool for businesses with large social media followings across many platforms because it does a great job of simplifying your social strategy.

Pricing

• Standard: $99 month-to-month (5 social profiles)
• Professional: $169 month-to-month (10 social profiles)
• Advanced: $249 month-to-month (10 social profiles)

Oktopost

Unlike the other social media management platforms on this list, Oktopost goes beyond basic social media management. With a focus on enterprise B2B businesses, it shows which posts are generating leads so you can calculate the ROI of your social media plan.

You can use it to create content and generate engagement. Features like smart scheduling and content curation help you get more out of your social media plan. The platform also includes features to help with employee advocacy on social media.

Oktopost is a full-service platform with lots of advanced features you won’t find in tools like Buffer and Hootsuite. If social media is a major part of your business strategy, it’s worth a look.

Pricing

Contact sales for a custom quote

Operations and process documentation tools

Process documentation makes a big difference. When you have clear instructions that describe exactly how to handle a job, you can delegate work faster and more easily.

Documentation should be easy to access and understand. Everyone on your team (including your virtual assistant) should be able to find the information they need without asking you for help.

Your virtual assistant can use these documents tools to get up to speed faster. They can also help you keep your documentation up to date as your procedures evolve.

The tools listed here are designed to help you keep your business operations organized.

Process Street

Process Street is a workflow management program that lets you create checklists and procedures to help you guide your team through common tasks. You can build workflows to guide employees or assistants through any activity.

Your workflows can be straightforward (like a to-do list) or they can use conditional logic to respond to different possibilities.

For example, imagine you’re setting up a workflow for your virtual assistant to handle social media responses. It might look something like this:

• Read the message thoroughly.
  • If it’s spam, delete the message.
  • If it’s a media request, forward it to the public relations specialist.
  • If it’s a customer support question, forward to a support agent.
  • If it’s a common question, move to the next step.
• Use the appropriate template to respond to common questions.
  • Here are our business hours
  • You can view our product catalog on our website at www.example.com
  • We are currently offering this promotion

Process Street is a powerful tool to keep your company’s work consistent and accurate. It simplifies onboarding and helps eliminate uncertainty when approaching new tasks.

Pricing

• Pro: $30 per user/month
• Enterprise: Contact them for details

Trainual

Trainual is another popular tool for procedural documentation. It guides onboarding for new team members, stores your company policies, and allows you to create playbooks.

Playbooks are just what they sound like. These guides explain each step of a work process so that your procedures are clear.

Trainual empowers you to turn your standard procedures into useful training programs. Rather than handing a new hire a long, boring document and asking them to memorize it, you can create an interactive program that teaches all the important stuff in bite-sized pieces.

You can also use the built-in templates to help you create your own personalized company policies. Then, use the software to distribute that information to your team.

Whether they’re on desktop or mobile, Trainual allows employees to essentially train themselves. This is extremely valuable as more teams are transitioning to asynchronous work.

Pricing

• Build: $61 per month (5 seats included)
• Train: $124 per month (10 seats included)
• Scale: $249 per month (20 seats included)

SweetProcess

SweetProcess stores all of your procedures and policies in one place. That way, you can stay on top of your process refinements.

Each time you update a document or process, the old version is saved in your version history — but this isn’t just for your employees and your virtual assistant. SweetProcess allows you to make all or some of your documentation public. Your customers can search for help articles that give them detailed answers on how to use your product.

It also offers some basic task tracking tools to help you keep track of what your team is doing. These features aren’t as robust as project management software, but they’re great for teams that have a lot of repetitive tasks.

Pricing

$99 per month for up to 20 active members, +$5 per month for each additional member

Virtual assistant programs

Let’s say you don’t have a virtual assistant at all. Luckily, companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon have been hard at work creating virtual assistant software that can help both individuals and businesses handle their daily tasks more easily.

None of these tools are a total replacement for a human virtual assistant, but they can handle basic tasks like adding appointments to your calendar, giving you directions, and ordering office supplies.

Google Assistant

Google Assistant is Google’s voice-activated virtual assistant software. You probably know about it because of the Google Home smart speaker, but it’s available on other Android-powered devices.

Quick Answers is one of the best things about this virtual assistant program. Google is, after all, the undisputed leader in search. Ask just about anything and you’ll get a top-ranking answer.

You can also ask questions like “What’s on my schedule today?” or “When is Mom’s birthday?” The program will check your calendar and respond in plain language.

Create your own commands by making custom shortcuts. You can do this verbally, too. Just tell your assistant that you want to manage shortcuts and it will walk you through.

Google Assistant supports both text and voice commands.

Pricing

• Desktop or mobile device: Free
• Various Google Home devices: ≈$50-300

Cortana

If you’ve ever played Microsoft’s marquee video game franchise Halo, you probably have a pretty good idea of what Cortana is capable of.

While this Cortana probably won’t help you save the universe, Microsoft’s take on the virtual assistant can play the role of hero in your personal life. Like Google Assistant, Cortana answers your questions, books meetings, and sets reminders for you whenever needed.

Pricing

Free with Microsoft 365

Siri

Siri is Apple’s voice-controlled virtual assistant. It’s built-in on most Apple devices which makes it a widely used tool.

You can use voice commands to send messages, get directions, or add things to your calendar. Siri can even post to your Twitter or Facebook profile using just a voice command.

One of the coolest Siri features is the ability to give yourself location-based reminders. For example, imagine you’re working late and you want to remember to pick up flowers for your wife on your way home from work. When you leave the office, Siri detects your location and serves you the reminder.

Since Siri connects with OpenTable, you can use it to make restaurant reservations. As long as the restaurant uses OpenTable to help with their bookings, you can simply tell your virtual assistant to make the reservation.

Pricing

Free with Apple devices

Amazon Alexa

Alexa (also known as Echo) is the virtual assistant program from Amazon. Like other tools on our list, you can use it to search online, create to-do lists, and more.

Alexa connects to your Amazon account. That means you can play books from Audible or order products from Amazon with just a voice command.

If you’re looking for something more business-oriented, Alexa for Business is probably more your speed. Unlike Alexa, Alexa for Business is specifically designed for productivity. You can use it to do things like reserve meeting rooms and start conference calls.

Though Alexa is available on other devices like Fitbits (and even eyeglasses), people most commonly use it at home or in the office. If you take the time to properly set it up, it becomes part of your smart home or smart office ecosystem and can control other devices with voice commands.

You can start your morning with a wake-up alarm, a weather report, and a quick reading of the day’s news. Connect other smart home devices and you can also start your coffee pot or turn on the bathroom lights.

At work, you can set up a routine that goes through your daily schedule and your to-dos.

If only it could do the actual work for you, right? Maybe they’ll figure that out in the next generation.

Pricing

• App for mobile devices: $0
• Various Amazon Echo devices: ≈$20-100

Wrap up

We’ve covered a lot of virtual assistant software solutions above.

Can you add anything to this list? Let us know which virtual assistant tools are your favorites in the comments below!

This post was originally published in June 2015. It has been updated for accuracy, and to include more relevant tools in January 2022.

---