What does a virtual assistant do for an Australian small business?

What does a virtual assistant do? For an Australian small business, a virtual assistant (VA) takes over the repeatable admin that eats the owner’s evenings: the inbox, the diary, new enquiries, bookings, CRM updates, documents, invoicing support and follow-ups. They work remotely inside your own systems, follow your templates and checklists, and pass back anything that needs a licence, a qualification or a decision only you can make.

In plain terms, a virtual assistant is a remote worker who provides administrative support from outside your office. Most virtual assistants provide some blend of admin, customer service and marketing help. Which blend you need comes down to your business needs, and to which jobs keep landing back on your desk.

Below you’ll find task lists for different kinds of business, the skills worth testing for, the work you shouldn’t delegate, and a way to scope the job before anyone is hired. Already decided to hire? Our virtual assistant role page covers screening and software, and our virtual assistant guide covers costs and the hiring model.

What does a virtual assistant do in a typical week?

Strip away the industry jargon and most virtual assistant roles come from the same short menu. A plumber and a mortgage broker will weight it differently. The core virtual assistant duties are:

• Email management: inbox management for the shared inbox. That means answering routine customer queries from templates you’ve approved and passing everything else to whoever should see it.
• Calendar management: scheduling meetings and booking, moving or confirming appointments. Depending on the business that might be inspections, site visits or consults, plus the reminder texts the day before.
• Phone calls: picking up or returning calls, taking messages, booking callbacks.
• Data entry and database management: new leads go into the CRM, client records get updated, and online records and customer spreadsheets stay tidy.
• Documents: quotes, letters, forms, proposals and simple reports, built from your templates in Microsoft Office or Google Workspace.
• Money admin: invoices raised for your review, receipts matched, payment reminders sent, overdue accounts chased.
• Follow-ups: the missing form from a client, the delivery date from a supplier, and the open items list that nobody else keeps.
• Social media management and content creation: scheduling social media posts you’ve signed off on your social media platforms, small website content updates, and help to draft blog posts and newsletters that you then edit.
• Online research: market research, supplier and price comparisons, and other research tasks, written up as a short note of key findings.
• Project coordination: keeping tasks and due dates current in your project management tools, and collecting feedback from clients once a job wraps up.
• Reporting: a few lines each day or week: done, waiting, needs your call.

Nobody should do all of that. The roles that work pick three or four groups and hand them over completely. Spreading one person across multiple tasks with no clear owner is how things fall through the gaps.

What are some examples of general administrative tasks?

General administrative tasks are the repetitive tasks every business has, whatever it sells. Answering emails. Booking appointments. Data entry, filing, raising invoices, ordering supplies, updating spreadsheets. Hand these admin tasks over first: they’re easy to write down, and you can tell at a glance whether they were done right.

What does a virtual assistant do for different types of business?

Business type	Typical virtual assistant tasks	Who signs off
Trades and construction	Answer enquiries, book quotes and site visits, enter jobs in ServiceM8 or Tradify, send quotes from templates, chase invoices, order materials from supplier lists	Owner approves quotes and pricing
Accounting and bookkeeping	Collect client documents, chase missing records, prepare workpapers, code transactions for review, manage the practice diary	Registered tax agent reviews and lodges
Mortgage broking	Gather client documents, pre-fill fact finds, update the CRM, order valuations, track conditions and settlement dates	Broker gives the credit assistance
Real estate and property	Upload listings, book inspections, log leads, send vendor reports, log maintenance requests and chase tradies	Licensee handles trust money and signs agreements
Allied health and clinics	Answer the phone, manage bookings and recalls, register new patients, prepare invoices	Practitioner handles anything clinical
Legal	Open files, run conflict-check requests, format documents, manage court and matter dates, prepare invoices	Lawyer gives the advice and signs off
Marketing agencies	Schedule content, pull campaign reports, manage client inboxes, update project boards	Account lead approves client-facing work
Business coaches and consultants	Book sessions, send pre-session forms, manage enrolments for online courses, schedule social media, run lead generation lists for the target audience you define	Coach owns the advice and the client relationship
E-commerce	Answer customer emails, process returns, update product listings, reconcile orders and stock	Owner sets pricing and refunds policy

Some of these jobs are specialised enough to hire for directly. If most of your list is bookkeeping, a bookkeeper is a better fit than a generalist virtual assistant; if it’s all clinic phones and bookings, look at a medical receptionist.

What skills does a virtual assistant need?

The virtual assistant skills that matter most are the ones that let someone work remotely without constant check-ins:

• Communication skills: clear written communication in emails and chat, and a confident manner on phone calls.
• Organisational skills and time management: keeping several inboxes, calendars and to-do lists in order, and prioritising tasks when everything arrives at once.
• Software: Microsoft Office or Google Workspace, your CRM or job system, scheduling tools and project management tools. Word processing software and spreadsheets are the baseline.
• Judgement: knowing when to follow the checklist and when to stop and ask.
• Setup: a strong internet connection, a quiet place to work and a backup plan for outages.

A highly skilled virtual assistant can work with minimum supervision once your checklists exist, and that’s what makes them a valuable asset rather than another person to manage. If you’re asking “can someone be a VA without experience?”, the answer is yes, but for a first hire most business owners are better off with someone who has done the same tasks for another business.

What does a virtual assistant job description include?

A good virtual assistant job description is short and specific. Include:

1. Job title: “virtual assistant” or something more precise, such as “operations assistant” or “client admin assistant”.
2. Purpose: one sentence on what the role owns, for example “owns new enquiries from first contact to booked appointment”.
3. Duties: the three or four task groups from the list above, with the systems used for each.
4. Skills: the software and communication standard you need.
5. Hours and time zone: when they must be online, in Australian time.
6. Measures: two or three things you’ll check each week.

Generic job ads that list every possible task attract generalists. A scoped one attracts people who’ve already done the work.

Virtual assistant, personal assistant or executive assistant: what’s the difference?

Role	Typical work	Best for
Virtual assistant	General admin across the business, done remotely	Small business owners with a pile of repeatable admin
Virtual executive assistant	Close support for one leader, or sometimes multiple executives: complex diary, travel, board papers, confidential correspondence	Leaders with busy schedules who need a right hand
Personal assistants	Personal and work errands for one person, often in person	Individuals who need help on site
In-house employee	Any of the above, from your office	Roles that need someone physically present

An in-house employee needs office space, equipment and, in Australia, a local salary. Tarino’s typical Australian salary for a virtual assistant role is around $80,000 a year plus superannuation, against around $1,100 a month for a Philippines-based hire.

Freelancer, agency or direct hire: where do virtual assistants work?

Virtual assistance is sold in three main ways:

• Freelancers. Many virtual assistants work for multiple clients, billing by the hour. Flexible, but you share their time.
• A virtual assistant company or BPO provider. BPO stands for business process outsourcing. The provider engages the assistant and bills you a monthly fee for each person. What virtual assistants offer through these firms is convenience, at an ongoing cost.
• Direct hire. You hire the assistant yourself, often through a recruiter, and they work only for your business.

So is a virtual assistant a BPO job? Sometimes. Which is better depends on how much control you want: a full-time direct hire learns your systems and stays focused on your work, while a freelancer suits small or irregular workloads.

Can I find a virtual assistant in Australia?

Yes. Some virtual assistants are based in Australia, usually freelancing at Australian rates. Many Australian businesses hire from the Philippines instead, where strong English and overlapping working hours make remote support practical at a lower salary.

Is ChatGPT a virtual assistant?

ChatGPT and similar tools are often called AI assistants, but they aren’t a person who owns a process. They can draft an email or summarise a document. They can’t make phone calls on your behalf, chase a supplier, or notice that a booking was missed. Many virtual assistants use AI tools to work faster, with a person still checking the output before it reaches a client.

What shouldn’t a virtual assistant do?

The rule of thumb: a virtual assistant can prepare almost anything, but some things must be decided, signed or lodged by a licensed or registered person in Australia. A few examples where the law draws the line:

• Tax agent services. The Tax Practitioners Board says you must not charge a fee for a tax agent service, such as preparing or lodging a client’s return or giving tax advice they will rely on, unless you are a registered tax agent. In an accounting practice, a VA can prepare the work for a registered agent to review and lodge.
• Real estate trust money. In NSW, the government’s guidance says only the licensee in charge of a business may authorise trust account withdrawals, and that authority can’t be delegated. Other states have their own rules.
• Advice. Financial, legal and clinical advice stay with the qualified professional. A VA can book the meeting and prepare the file, not give the advice.
• Final approval of payments. Let your VA prepare payment runs and raise invoices, but keep approval with you or a second person.

Beyond the law, keep the work that depends on your judgement or relationships: pricing, hiring decisions, difficult client conversations and anything that changes your strategy. This is general information, not legal or tax advice, so confirm the rules for your industry with a qualified adviser.

What about privacy when a virtual assistant handles client data?

Your virtual assistant will see client names, contact details and often more. Many small businesses with turnover of $3 million or less aren’t covered by the Privacy Act, but the OAIC lists exceptions that apply regardless of turnover, including health service providers. If you are covered and you disclose personal information to someone overseas, APP 8 generally expects you to take reasonable steps, usually an enforceable contract, so it’s handled in line with the Australian Privacy Principles.

Good practice either way: a written contract with confidentiality clauses, individual logins with multi-factor authentication, and access only to the systems the role needs. Our data privacy checklist covers the setup.

How do you scope the role before hiring a virtual assistant?

Most virtual assistant hires that don’t work out fail at the scoping stage, not the hiring stage. A vague brief (“help me with admin”) attracts generalists and leaves both of you guessing. Here’s a simple way to scope it.

1. Log your admin for two weeks. Write down every task that isn’t the work only you can do: what it is, how long it took, how often it happens and which system it’s in.

2. Group and rank the tasks. Cluster them into the task groups above. Rank each group by hours per week and by how much it frustrates you.

3. Pick what the VA will own. Choose the groups that add up to a full week and are repeatable. “Owns new enquiries from first contact to booked appointment” is a better brief than “answers emails”.

4. Write down how each task is done. A short checklist or screen recording per task. If it only lives in your head, the VA can’t do it to your standard, and neither could anyone else.

5. Set the boundaries. List what the VA must escalate: anything involving money above a set amount, complaints, licensed work, and anything they’re unsure about.

6. Decide how you’ll measure it. Response time to enquiries, bookings made, invoices chased, inbox at zero by end of day. Pick two or three.

7. Match the role to the right hire. If the scope needs strong written English and judgement across a leader’s diary and correspondence, that’s an executive assistant. If it’s mostly data and documents, an admin assistant fits.

How much does a virtual assistant cost?

Tarino’s typical salary for a full-time, Philippines-based virtual assistant is around $1,100 a month, about $13,200 a year. Related roles cost a little more: an admin assistant is typically around $1,200 a month and an executive assistant around $1,700. You’ll also budget for Philippine employer costs such as 13th month pay. The cost calculator shows typical all-in totals.

Route	What you pay on top of salary
Hire directly through Tarino	One-time $5,000 excl. GST ($250 upfront + $4,750 on hire), no monthly fees
Hire directly, with Tarino EOR for payroll	One-time $5,000 fee, plus $387 per employee per month for contracts and payroll
Managed offshore agency	One published rate is A$1,099 per person per month plus A$1,200 per hire (Staff Domain)

Over a year, that managed-agency rate adds about $14,388 in fees to the first year of a single hire, and $13,188 a year after that. Our guide to offshore agency markups explains what those fees cover.

How do you get a virtual assistant started?

Spend the first week on access and shadowing, not output. Give them logins on day one, walk through your checklists, and have them shadow each of the day to day tasks before they do it alone. Increase what they own each week as their work meets your standard, so they can handle administrative projects on their own and deliver high quality work without you checking every step. Our first 30 days checklist and our guide to managing offshore staff go through it step by step.

Tarino sources 1,000+ candidates per role, screens them through CV review, video screening, a practical task and a structured interview, and sends you a shortlist of 3–4 in about 2 weeks. You hire and pay your virtual assistant directly. See how it works, or book a 30-minute call and bring your task list to start hiring a virtual assistant today.