| Online bookkeeping services and virtual assistants are | | | | result, a in-house assistant is a luxury which small |
| an outsourcing strategy that can be used to gain | | | | businesses usually cannot afford these days. |
| competitive advantage. As a result, they have shot to | | | | Even if a business can afford an in-house assistant, |
| prominence and firms of various sizes are utilizing | | | | the assistant is usually a jack-of-all trades whose work |
| them. The most recent recession has made | | | | load can get too much to handle. The in-house |
| businesses more prudent about how they spend their | | | | assistant can, at that point, off-load work to a virtual |
| operating budgets making virtual assistants a hot | | | | assistant who can act as an overflow buffer. A virtual |
| commodity. | | | | assistant can do just about anything an in-house |
| How exactly does using an online bookkeeping service | | | | assistant can do and could be put to good use as an |
| help crush the competition? Paying as low as $5 per | | | | assistant for in-house staff at a fraction of the cost. |
| hour for online bookkeeping services vs. the typical | | | | On the other end of the spectrum, some small |
| $30,000 for an in-house bookkeeper yields tremendous | | | | business owners attempt to do everything on their |
| cost savings for a small business. A small business | | | | own. Their time could be better spent focusing on |
| owner can use the money saved to (a) beat the | | | | business core competency and growing the business. |
| competition with lower prices for products and | | | | It would be far more efficient to delegate the |
| services, (b) invest in additional advertising to outgrow | | | | operational grind to low cost online services which |
| the competition, and (c) prepare better strategic plans. | | | | consists of specialists such as bookkeepers, paralegals |
| Small businesses can find it cumbersome to train and | | | | and administrative assistants. Otherwise, by doing |
| retain an in-house assistant or bookkeeper. Further, the | | | | the same tasks that can easily be handled by an online |
| effective hourly pay rate for the assistant gets quite | | | | business, the business owner is really working for $5 |
| high especially if you take into account vacations, | | | | per hour or less! That doesn't seem to make good |
| health care, sick time, lunch time and bench time. As a | | | | business sense either! |