AMF Typing Services celebrates 16 years 1st April 2017

 

http://amftyping.co.za/

 

 

 

 

Cell: +27 082 871 3452 • Office: +27 011 768 5028 Skype: amftyping, • Fax: 086  514  8475
Emails: amftyping@mweb.co.za • alison@amftyping.co.za

Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amftyping

Typing Services

 

What is involved with offering Typing as a service?

 

Can anyone type, yes, but can everyone offer typing as a service? Typing can be more than just copy typing. Typing can involve creating spreadsheets, equations, figures, graphs, charts etc., or even creating graphics. So you need to ask your prospective client what is involved with the typing before quoting.

• Is the typing just plain copy typing, what you see is what you type, is there any tables, graphs, charts as they must then be created, you might have to create a graph or chart in excel and copy it across to word, that is time taking and is not straight copy typing, as you must create the graph etc. Sometimes you might have to scan an image from an book, so that means you need to scan it on a scanner and then resize to insert it into your document, so that is not straight copy typing. You might need to find an image on the Internet, so that will involve research, finding the image. You might have to create a graphic, the client might have drawn an image, maybe a flow diagram, you will need to recreate this in the document this can also involve using graphic software then copy and insert within your document, and also this is very time consuming.
• A client might send you to copy a PDF document for typing. Not all PDF conversion software works nicely when you convert a PDF document into word. You might find you still have to reformat the document this is time taking and often much quicker to just type the document from scratch. Note here the client will know the document is not typed from scratch, they will know you have used conversion software to convert the document and often this is not the quickest route to take.
  
  
  
• You might need to firstly print out what the client has sent you so that you can type from it, it takes time to print out a document, and it costs to print from a printer.
• At the end of your document you need to proofread and perform a spell check, this should be part of your quote or terms and condition; this task must always be done. Make sure you list this so that clients can see that you perform this task.
• Sometimes clients might want their document saved to a memory stick (flash drive) you need to charge for this as it is time taking and you maybe you need to a buy the memory stick.
• If you offer typing as a service make sure you state that you can create graphs, tables, charts, brochures, graphics, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations. Do not assume all typing is simple copy typing, often it is more involved.
• You may need to insert equations, this takes extra time to do this, so make sure you feature this time into the length of time it will takes you to complete the typing.
• You can no longer send large files through email and often you have to make use of Google docs, Dropbox, Send this File etc so make sure that your Internet bundle (capped or uncapped) can cope with offering typing. Files will need to be downloaded and uploaded. A file with graphics, graphs etc will take time to load and is very time consuming loading to Send this File or Dropbox etc, especially if it has more than 20 pages. A large manual with graphics, graphs and flows, a large spreadsheet, a PowerPoint presentation can take a few hours to upload, you have to remember this when it comes to your deadline and getting the work back to the client in time.
  
• If you contract typing out to a subcontractor make sure you check the work thoroughly and ask the subcontractor to make sure they proof their own work then you double proof the work when you get it back. Often a subcontractor will just do the work and send it back to you and tell you it is proofed, don’t make the mistake of sending it to the client without you doing a proofread and spell check. You are the one the work is sent to from your client and not the subcontractor so it is up to you to make sure you send back a quality document.
• When offering typing services sometimes you will get in tasks that you don’t like doing, maybe lots of figure typing, typing of tables, this can be boring for some, listen to music as you type, this will help the time go a bit quicker.
• When pricing typing the norm is to charge on a per page basis but it can also be done on an hourly rate, whichever works out best for you, is what you offer.
• Authors and students may ask you for a charge per word, roughly you normally get ±750/1000 words to an A4 page at Ariel at a size 12 font.
• If you have a table within the document, check out the other tables within the document, maybe you can just copy and paste your first one and just change the data, this can save you time.
• Know how many pages you can do in an hour, day, or week so that you can let the client know if you can reach their deadline, remember if you have graphics, graphs, charts etc within a document it might take you longer to create these so therefore affecting the time it takes to complete your document.
• Ask for client preferences: fonts, size of text, colour in graphs, flow diagrams, spacing, justification, ask if the client can provide you with the company logo’s/graphics, templates if required. etc.
• Do not take on typing work if you do not know how to do it, you can subcontract it out, if that is the case make sure your subcontract has the experience to do the job.

The Concept of being a Virtual Assistant/Person running your own Business

A virtual assistant runs their own business from a virtual location/area. When you run your own business you will do the same tasks as management would do in a larger company, the difference is you might be doing these tasks yourself unless you get assistance from other like-minded people. The concept of running a VA businesses is that you are running a business, you are doing the marketing, bookkeeping, networking, the work, debt collection, invoicing etc, you do it all yourself.

You are your own boss.

As you are running a company you are on the same level as other company bosses, CEO’s, managers, directors etc. You are no longer in the situation where you are a PA or Office Manager getting instructions from a Boss, you are not working for someone else that can give you instructions, you have to get the work, you have to draw the clients to you through having presence on social media, online/offline advertising, website, blog, networking, advertising in your area etc.

You organise your company, one of the tasks you organise is, your pricing structure, you as the company owner need to have prices/rates for the services you are offering or the products that you are selling. Part of running your company is setting up your pricing structures. You do not contact a potential client and wait for them to give you a price for the services you are offering, you have a pricing structure ready and you tell the client your price.

To run your company/business you need to have a company structure and follow set procedures to be organised. Specific things need to be done at specific times, like your office administration, invoicing your clients, keeping your work schedules up to date etc. You need to have a structure of how you are going to deal with clients; how you are going to be doing the work, a structure of dealing with subcontractors should you need to use them. You need to know how long it will take you to say transcribe a 1 hour file, how long would it take you to type up a 100 page document, how long will it take you to organise an event etc. These are things you need to know as working for many clients you need to be organised and be able to schedule the work and be able to meet deadlines that are set by your clients.

As a VA you need to be able to do multi-tasking, you could be working for a few clients at the same time, this is where you will use your time management and prioritising skills.

Being a VA is about running a business, being your own boss, scheduling your work times and procedures yourself. You are an Entrepreneur in a worldwide industry that is growing daily.

What is a Virtual Assistant?

Being a Virtual Assistant is about running your own business. Owning your own business, you are not working for someone else. You are not an employee, therefore, you do not use a CV, instead you use a company profile, your website, Linked in, Facebook etc.

You are a business owner, your own boss. You do not work for clients, you work with clients, you do not work for other VAs, you subcontract to other VAs or you can work as an associate in a multi VA practice.

 

 

I find a lot of people who want to become Virtual Assistants actually have no idea what a Virtual Assistant is and what we do. We are service companies; we offer our skills and experiences to clients. We work as any business does but we have to do our own bookkeeping, administration, marketing, advertising, networking, fixing our own office equipment etc. We run our business like every other small business, doing the same tasks.

 

If you would like more information about Virtual Assistants in South Africa please contact me at amftyping@mweb.co.za or alison@amftypinh.co.za

Definition of a Virtual Assistant, from: AMF Typing Services

A Virtual Assistant is a person who works for many clients, providing office administration tasks, communicates with clients via telephone, email, Skype; we may never meet our clients face to face.

A person who works independently from his/her own virtual office.

An office administration person, with at least 10 years of office experience as a PA/Secretary or Office Manager.

A person who can work alone.

A person with exceptional time management and prioritisation skills.

Someone who can run an office and liaise with clients on an ongoing basis.

Someone with a bit of management experience can learn quickly and who is at ease with software.

We have to be pro-active and assertive, and friendly.

Virtual Assistants are Business Owners, who run their own companies, do their own marketing, networking, bookkeeping etc.

Becoming a Virtual Assistant is a career choice within a worldwide industry.

 

 

VA Tips & Tricks Blogging Challenge 2014 - D is for Dogs

My office companions are my dogs Shaggy and Scooby. They are always with me in my office. They hurry into the office on a morning, so that the first one in, can lie under the desk. There is usually one under the desk and the other either at the side of my chair or behind my chair. Both dogs will stand and growl at each other to argue who gets to be under the desk.

The one thing that Shaggy does not like is when other’s come into my office. He thinks this is his space and mine and nobody else must be in here. He can be very naughty when I have office guests.

Shaggy has eaten and chewed my clients work a few times now (very embarrassing). The papers fall to the floor without us noticing it and when we come to look for the page, here it is on the floor chewed in bits, it’s a favourite hobby of Shaggy.

 

While we are busy working he will find something to eat and chew from the office, the carpet is mainly his target for chewing, just to be naughty as it means I must talk to him and give him attention while I am busy.

With the dogs being in the office it gives me someone to talk to during the day. I talk my frustration of the day out to the dogs. To me if I had someone in my office I would talk to them so the dogs are here, so I talk to them. If I need to work something out, say build a graphic I will talk to myself how I am going to do it and to me I am not talking to myself I’m talking to the dogs. Does anyone identify with this or is it just me. Some people have cats for company in the office, I have my dogs. Shaggy has took it upon himself to go where I go, he follows me everywhere during the day. I have had to pull my blinds up so that both dogs can watch out of the office window, the blinds are pulled up to above Shaggy’s head so that he does not damage them as he looks through the window, they love looking outside and watching down the street.

My trusty faithful dogs who listen to my daily moans and groans as I work are great company. I never feel alone at work, as I always have the dogs around.

 

 

VA Tips & Tricks Blogging Challenge 2014 - D is for Dressing your Office

We sit for hours on end in our offices or office space so why not make that space pleasant to be in. Paint it your favourite colour, drape nice material around your space to make it look nice. Place all your equipment around you so that it is easy to get to, have your files close at hand. Things you use daily need to be close to you.

Make sure you have a comfortable chair as you sit in it all day.

Hang up nice pictures on the walls, have nice family photographs around you. Your office needs to be a pleasant place to work in.

 

Don’t over clutter your desk, says me whose desk is a clutter mess. You can never have a big enough desk, the bigger the desk the better. Always have Post It notes handy, I have a few packs around my desk, at reach, as I use them all the time.

Put a vase of flowers on your desk. My hubby keeps me up with supply of roses from the garden.

Make sure your children know their boundaries within your office/space. Let them know what they can touch. If you have small children keep some toys, crayons and colouring books, reading books close by, this can occupy them while you are busy.

Let family know when they can interrupt you and when they can’t. The family must also respect the fact that you are working and sometimes you don’t want to be disturbed, especially by teenagers who might want that favourite skirt ironed and they don’t want to do it themselves, teach them independence.

Last year my hubby painted my office a nice bright peach colour, I placed nice pictures on the walls. I have placed another desk in the office so that my desk now has an L shape and I have much more room. Everything is close at hand or within reach. For the first time in years I love being in my office, my office is bright and a happy place to be in.

With our jobs we do spend a good 8+ hours in our offices so our surrounding need to be nice.

How easy is it being a Virtual Assistant?

Being a Virtual Assistant (VA) is not all about the client sending you typing, you do the work and send it back, there is much more involved.
As a VA we do many things, there is month end administration with invoices every month so no matter how busy you are, you stop and do your invoices, it is important to be paid for the work we do. You set aside a day and get your invoices out. Bookkeeping and updating your schedules. This is just one part of our administration another part is, we need to push clients and contractors for payments and invoices, we have to battle with clients who do not want to pay, who query what we do.
One of our aims is to keep our clients happy all the time, we need to keep that client as they provide us with ongoing work so we nurture that client; our clients are our bread and butter. We need to liaise with our clients often.
Managing many clients work is not an easy task. Keep their work in separate folders also in my documents have client folders and in email. With regular clients it is best to invoice monthly. All my clients are regular so I prepare all their invoices at the end of the month and get them all out at the same time so that I can monitor payments coming in. This is where my work log comes in handy as I document all work incoming, and I check back against this when doing my invoicing for each client.
Administration as we call it is a major part of being a VA. We need to market continually, our company needs to be out in the public eye and be seen. Our websites/blogs need to be updated. We continually look for new avenue’s to market our work to. Networking is just as important, there is always the need to tell everyone and anyone what we do, who we are, get the word out there. Any person you talk to could be a potential clients or referral, that’s why it is important to talk about your business no matter where you are, when you can and who you are with. We continually need to look for avenue’s to advertise our companies.
Often we need to do debt collecting with clients who do not pay, this is not a nice part of the job but we must do it, we need to be paid for what we do.
Managing of contractors, when a VA is overloaded we then get the opportunity to help out newbie Vas by contracting to them or helping out established VAs with a bit of extra work. Contracting work out is not as easy as you think. We are on our contractors backs to get them to keep in touch, they need to meet our deadlines, what if the contractor decides she is not doing the work or cant for some reason then we need to find a replacement in the middle of the work that is time taking. Paying of contractors on completion of work.
Another favourite is quoting for work, often ad-hoc jobs come in and we need to arrange a quote, quoting is not quick we need to ask questions to be able to place a price on the work, very time consuming especially with larger jobs.
Filing must be done as with any job, the office administration as seen above is often the hardest part of our job to do, but that comes with running any company/business. There are still many other facets about being a virtual assistant, the best way to learn about doing this type of job is to talk to established VAs as they know what they are doing and they can give you valuable information.

So you see it is not all about sitting and typing, it is about running a full time business/company, and these are only a handful of the tasks we do.

Written by Alison Fourie VAcertified
AMF Typing Service cc

Does your client work all hours or do they work 8am to 5pm?

Does your client work all hours or do they work 8am to 5pm?


Your clients working hours will impact on your working hours, so make sure you are both in sync about the hours you work.

The reason I am asking is because if your clients are working all hours, weekends, you will be expected to be available these hours unless you state different. I am available to suit my clients and every one of them works all hours and weekends, but that is my preference. My children are at a stage where they are not dependent on me, they can do things for themselves, my husband understands my work and the hours that are needed for my clients so both of us work around our businesses and make things work for the family.

If you want to work 8am to 5pm make sure you go for the types of clients that work these hours.

Make your availability known to your clients as part of your client agreement contract which you should both sign at the beginning of your working relationship.

If you are starting out your business and still working full time, make sure you tell potential clients that you are working full time and only working on your business part time at present, as this will affect your deadlines. An idea can be for you when starting out is to subcontract jobs out to a full time VA till you are able to go full time within your own business.

Balancing your family and your home office

Organising your time is very important when working from home, especially if you have a family. You need to still spend time with your family but you also need to be committed to completing your work.

You must learn how to balance your time between your office and your family. Your office must be your working domain, away from the children, they must learn and know that this is your place of work. They must be taught not disturb your desk and equipment in any way. Maybe setting up there own little office space within your office, maybe with a little table, chair, paper and crayons could help.

A good idea is to have set times where you work in your office and times when you spend with the children, teaching the children these times and try to keep to these boundaries that you set. If possible having someone on hand to help with the children while you are working would be very helpful, maybe a maid or a Grandparent. Or an idea could be to send your children to crèche during your working hours and then have them home early afternoon and spend the rest of the day with them, if you have urgent work that needs completion, then you can start again once the children are in bed, don’t forget though that you also need to spend quality time with your husband. Another useful idea is to let hubby spend time with the children on a Saturday morning while you complete any outstanding work tasks, therefore your husband will get to spend valuable quality time with the children which he cannot do during the week because of work commitments.

Your office needs to be organized and if you practice time management skills, you will feel less stressed and more in control of your working environment. Start your day by checking first your diary to see what you have scheduled for that day, then download and check your e-mails and any mail you have for the day, then schedule all your tasks for that day on a ‘To do List’, carrying on the tasks from the previous day, add new tasks as and when you receive them onto the end of the list, use your prioritization skills to prioritize as you go. If your day is structured, your working life will be organized and less stressful. Try to keep your office stress within your office. If you are stressed this will affect the way your children behave, so remember stress stays in the office.

Try to keep everything on your desk in its own place, that way if the children have came into your office and moved anything around on your desk you will know immediately, as children do this regularly if they have access to your office. A good idea would be to lock your pc functions, screen and keys, this will stop them from upsetting anything on your computer.

VA Business Plan

I know its very daunting start out as a virtual assistant, in fact down right scary. There is so much to be done and that horrible business plan, do I really have to write one, I dont know how, or want to know how. But its got to be done. Its the backbone of your business, without a business plan many VA and small business companies will not last long. All business even that of a VA , must have structure and procedures. How else can you work. Your business plan is like a skeleton and the pieces must fit together to work and everything is connected to your backbone, your business plan. It should take about a week to pull it together, use a template from the internet as then the categories are there and its a case of just adding your information and customising the template into your working business plan.
There are specific categories to fill in, do not rush this, think of your information, think how you want to run your business, think of the procedures that you will do for every task and document them.  If you need a bit of help with this, don't struggle, give me a shout and I will asisst.
A VA business with no structure or a clear plan is doomed. Your business plan will be a working document and will change lots especially over your first year as you settle into running your VA business.

Do you live in your Office

Yes I sometimes feel as though I live in my office, I am in it for long hours at a time, more so than any other part of my house. Does anyone else spend as much time in the office?
In the corporate world we work set hours, here working for yourself, its all hours and more. How to get round it, you can't as you need to build your business on a continual basis. I can only think to take regular breaks and walks, out of the office, even a wander around the garden is a break, stretch your body, your arms and legs, move your head around a few times. If you have a laptop you can at least go into another room and sit and type, or even sit in the garden in the summer. Go make tea take regular breaks. That is one of the reasons why its good to make your office comfortable as you spend that much time in it. Make sure you have a comfortable chair, I sit on my office chair much more then i sit in the lounge. I spend far too much time in this office of mine.

Required/Wanted Minute Taker / Shorthand Skills

Wanted/Required Minute Taker/Shorthand people, be able to take minutes or shorthand at conferences/events/meetings etc during business hours, apply to amfytping@mweb.co/za with your CVs.