A few things people often want to know before getting in touch. If your question isn’t here, just ask.
What is a Virtual Assistant?
A Virtual Assistant (VA) takes on the day-to-day admin and business support a growing business needs, without you having to hire a full-time member of staff. It means help with things like your inbox, diary, invoicing and paperwork exactly when you need it, so small jobs never turn into a backlog and you can spend your time on the work only you can do.
What happens to hours I don’t use?
Hours don’t roll over — each package resets at the start of the new month, so it’s a clean slate every month rather than a growing balance to keep track of.
If you regularly don’t use all of your hours, I’ll highlight this to you and we can review whether another package or PAYG is more suitable for your needs.
What if I need more hours than my package covers in a given month?
Extra hours are billed at the standard £35/hr Pay As You Go rate, on top of your package. If it’s a regular thing rather than a one-off, it’s usually cheaper to move up a package tier.
Is there a minimum contract or notice period?
No long-term contract and no notice period — everything runs month to month, and you can change package size, switch to Pay As You Go, or stop altogether whenever you need to.
How does billing work?
Pay As You Go is in arrears — you’re invoiced at the end of each month for the work done, payable within 10 working days.
Packages are in advance — you’re invoiced at the start of each month for the work done, payable within 10 working days. Additional hours worked are treated as PAYG and billed in arrears.
All hours are logged in Clockify, so you can see exactly what was worked on and when.
What can’t you help with?
A few things sit outside what I offer: anything requiring regulated financial advice or full bookkeeping (I can enter invoices into Xero, not act as your accountant), complex IT support (I’m not a developer or a cybersecurity consultant), and in-person tasks are limited to within 30 miles of Fordingbridge, Hampshire.
If there’s something outside of my remit that you desperately need doing, what is in my remit is to find and contract that specialist, at your request.
If you’re not sure whether something fits, just ask — I like something a bit unusual!
How quickly will you get back to me, or turn work around?
I aim to respond within one working day.
How do you handle confidential information and data protection?
Handling sensitive information properly isn’t new to me, and I’ve seen how easily data can be compromised as I’ve been the one investigating the compromise! Your data is handled in line with UK GDPR, and I’m ICO registered (registration number ZC214585), with appropriate use of passwords and encryption throughout.
Do you use AI tools?
You’re hiring me — as a human — not AI. If you wanted ChatGPT to do your work, I assume you’d already be using it.
For this reason, my starting position is that I don’t use AI tools for client work. That’s not an absolute refusal, though: if there’s a specific case where it would genuinely help, we can talk through the use case and agree the parameters first. If we agree it’s appropriate, I will use a paid tier of Claude and sanitise input data to remove any sensitive information. I will be clear and transparent with you about what has been done with the assistance of AI.
I will not use AI to complete any tasks that I do not have the knowledge or competence to quality check myself.
How do I get started?
Get in touch, or if you’re not sure what you need, start with The Reset — a free discovery call where we work out what’s actually needed together.