75 Tasks You Can Hand to a Virtual Assistant Today

Categorizing last month's expenses appears on every list of virtual assistant tasks, and it shows the trade in plain dollars. Done yourself, it eats about two hours at the end of an already long day. A mid-level assistant in the Philippines charges $8.50 to $14 an hour for exactly this kind of work, so you're paying under $30 to get an evening back. This virtual assistant tasks list gives you 75 more trades like that one, grouped by category. The 10 that pay for themselves fastest are marked "start here."

Email and calendar tasks

Time etc surveyed 251 US entrepreneurs and found they work an average of 45.5 hours a week, with 36% of that time going to admin. Email and scheduling are the biggest chunk, so start here.

1. Start here. Ask your assistant to triage your inbox every morning, sorting messages into reply, read later, and archive. You start the day with five flagged emails instead of eighty unread ones.
2. Start here. Have them draft replies to routine messages, like refund questions or "can we hop on a call" requests, using templates you approve once.
3. Let them unsubscribe you from newsletters and set up filters. One pass through a cluttered inbox usually removes 30 or more recurring senders.
4. Hand over meeting scheduling, including the back-and-forth over times. Your assistant proposes slots, sends the invite, and adds the Zoom link.
5. Give them your calendar to defend. They block two hours of focus time daily and decline anything that lands on top of it.
6. Ask for a prep note before each external call, covering who's attending and what you discussed last time.
7. Have them send the recap email after meetings, with decisions and next steps, within the hour.
8. Let them handle rescheduling when plans change. They write the apology and find the new slot without you touching it.
9. Ask them to confirm tomorrow's appointments each afternoon. No-shows drop when someone actually checks.

Everything in this first category fits a single generalist hire. One assistant from a service like Magic can cover inbox, calendar, and travel together, and Magic says it matches you with someone in under a week.

Admin tasks

These are the tasks that fill the gaps between meetings and never feel finished.

10. Hand over data entry, like moving 300 leads from a conference badge scan into your CRM with every name spelled right.
11. Ask them to format documents, turning your rough bullet notes into a clean proposal with your logo and consistent headings.
12. Start here. Let them book your travel. You say "Chicago, Tuesday to Thursday, aisle seat" and get back flights, a hotel near the venue, and a one-page itinerary.
13. Have them clean up your Google Drive so every file follows one naming rule and lives in the right folder.
14. Send them call recordings to transcribe. A 40-minute client call comes back as searchable text plus a five-bullet summary.
15. Ask them to write your SOPs. You record yourself doing a task once on Loom, and they turn it into a step-by-step checklist.
16. Give them your software subscriptions to audit. Most businesses find at least one tool they've been paying for and not using.
17. Let them collect vendor quotes, like three bids for office cleaning with prices lined up in one email.
18. Hand them the phone calls you keep putting off, like sitting on hold with the bank or disputing an internet bill.

Customer support tasks

Support is repetitive by design, which makes it easy to document and delegate.

19. Start here. Have them answer the tickets that repeat, like "where's my order" and password resets. In most support inboxes that's more than half the queue.
20. Ask them to build saved replies for your ten most common questions, so every answer is consistent and takes one click.
21. Let them cover live chat during the hours you're asleep or in meetings. A VA in Manila can staff your chat widget overnight while a US customer browses your pricing page.
22. Give them authority to process refunds under a set limit, like anything below $50, without asking you.
23. Have them tag and route tickets, so billing questions reach you and shipping questions reach the warehouse.
24. Ask them to follow up two days after a ticket closes and request a review when the customer is happy.
25. Let them watch your reviews and social mentions daily, flagging anything angry before it spreads.

Bookkeeping and finance tasks

In the Time etc survey, 59% of entrepreneurs were still logging their own expenses every week. Almost all of that can go.

26. Start here. Hand over invoice chasing. Your assistant sends a polite reminder at 7 days, a firmer one at 14, and flags anything past 30 for you.
27. Ask them to categorize expenses in QuickBooks or Xero every Friday, so you're not sorting twelve months of charges next April.
28. Have them reconcile bank and card statements against your books each month and flag anything that doesn't match.
29. Let them chase receipts from your team and match each one to a card charge.
30. Give them accounts payable prep. Bills arrive sorted and queued, and you approve payments in one sitting.
31. Ask for a simple monthly report, like one sheet showing revenue, expenses, and cash on hand.
32. Have them gather everything your accountant asks for at tax time, from 1099s to mileage logs.

Marketing tasks

You set the message. Your assistant keeps it publishing on schedule.

33. Start here. Let them schedule your social posts. You approve a week of content on Monday, and it goes out on time without you opening Buffer again.
34. Ask them to repurpose what you've already made, like cutting a blog post into a LinkedIn post and a newsletter blurb.
35. Have them build graphics in Canva from templates you've locked, so everything stays on brand.
36. Give them newsletter production. They format the draft in Mailchimp, test every link, and schedule the send.
37. Let them run podcast admin, like uploading episodes and writing the show notes.
38. Hand them blog publishing. They load the post into WordPress with images and internal links, then schedule it.
39. Ask them to write first-pass replies to comments and DMs, escalating anything that needs your voice.
40. Have them update a weekly metrics sheet with followers, open rates, and site traffic pulled from each platform.
41. Let them build outreach lists, like 30 podcasts in your niche with host names and pitch emails.

Ecommerce tasks

Store operations run on small daily chores, and a VA can own nearly all of them.

42. Start here. Hand over product listings. Your assistant writes or refreshes titles, descriptions, and specs across 50 SKUs while you work on the next product.
43. Ask them to watch inventory and alert you when any SKU drops below its reorder point.
44. Have them chase stuck shipments, filing carrier claims and emailing the customer before the customer emails you.
45. Let them process returns by your written policy, escalating only the unusual ones.
46. Give them a weekly competitor price check, tracked in a sheet so you can see who moved.
47. Ask them to upload and lightly retouch product photos so new items go live the day they're shot.
48. Have them answer marketplace messages on Amazon and Etsy inside the response window, which protects your seller rating.

Research tasks

Research rarely needs your judgment until the last step. Delegate the gathering and keep the decision.

49. Let them compare software for you, like five CRM options in one table with pricing and the two features you actually care about.
50. Ask them to summarize what competitors offer, like each rival's pricing page and money-back terms.
51. Have them gather stats and sources for content you're writing, with a link attached to every number.
52. Give them prospect research before sales calls. You walk in knowing the company's size, funding, and who you're talking to.
53. Let them find conferences worth attending, with ticket prices and speaker deadlines in one list.
54. Ask them to source suppliers, like five manufacturers with minimum order quantities and sample costs.
55. Have them send you a Friday digest of industry news, capped at five links with one line each.

Sales support tasks

A VA can't close deals for you, but they can make sure you only spend time on the calls that count.

56. Start here. Hand over lead list building. Your assistant finds 100 prospects that match your ideal customer and verifies every email address.
57. Ask them to clean your existing list, removing dead addresses so your bounce rate stays under 2%.
58. Start here. Give them CRM upkeep. They log every call and keep deals in the right stage, so your pipeline numbers stay honest.
59. Let them send first-touch outreach from templates you wrote, personalizing one line per prospect.
60. Have them run follow-up sequences, nudging anyone who hasn't replied on day 3 and day 7.
61. Ask them to assemble proposals and quotes from your template, so a request never waits more than a day.
62. Give them demo scheduling, including a reminder email the day before, which cuts no-shows.

Hiring and HR tasks

Recruiting is mostly coordination, and coordination is what assistants do best.

63. Let them post your job ad across LinkedIn, Indeed, and the niche boards in one afternoon.
64. Start here. Hand over resume screening. You write a 10-point checklist once, and they turn 200 applicants into a shortlist of 15.
65. Ask them to schedule interviews and coordinate the panel's calendars, including the reschedules.
66. Have them run reference checks, asking your five questions and recording the answers word for word.
67. Give them onboarding admin, like creating accounts and building the new hire's first-week calendar.
68. Let them maintain the PTO tracker and remind you of work anniversaries before the day arrives.

Personal tasks

The founder Abby Davisson wrote up what she hands to her own assistant, and most of it is personal. Her examples inspired several of these.

69. Ask them to research and order gifts. Davisson's assistant tracks down everything from holiday presents to a single replacement LEGO piece.
70. Have them plan personal trips end to end, from flights to a shortlist of three Airbnbs with the reviews already screened.
71. Let them book the appointments you keep forgetting, like the dentist and the car service.
72. Give them meal planning and the weekly grocery order. You share the recipes you like once, and an Instacart cart shows up for approval every Sunday.
73. Ask them to sell your old stuff. Davisson's assistant writes her Poshmark descriptions and researches the prices.
74. Have them keep the family calendar current, with school breaks and kids' activities entered a semester ahead.
75. Let them build packing checklists before trips, one per kid, so the night before departure isn't a scramble.

How to pick your first 5 virtual assistant tasks

Don't hand over all 75 at once. Score each task you're considering on two things: how often you do it, and how much of your personal judgment it needs. Tasks you do daily or weekly that need little judgment, like inbox triage or expense categorization, should go first. Tasks that are frequent but need real judgment, like replying to upset customers, go second, once you've written instructions. Rare tasks that need little judgment can wait, and rare tasks that need heavy judgment, like pricing decisions, probably stay with you. Pick five from that first group and write a short checklist for each one. A checklist for invoice chasing might be four lines: pull unpaid invoices Monday, send the day-7 template, send the day-14 template, flag anything older in Slack. Once your five checklists exist, follow our guide to hiring a virtual assistant to find the person who'll run them.

FAQ

What are the main things a virtual assistant can do?

A generalist VA handles email, scheduling, data entry, bookkeeping support, customer service, and personal errands, while specialized VAs cover areas like ecommerce or marketing. If you're new to the model, our explainer on what a virtual assistant is covers how the role works.

How much does a virtual assistant cost?

Rates vary widely by location and skill. Hubstaff puts the overall average around $15 an hour, while a mid-level US-based VA runs $25 to $45 an hour and a comparable Philippines-based VA runs $8.50 to $14.

What tasks should I not give a virtual assistant?

Keep anything that defines the business, like pricing, strategy, firing decisions, and relationships with your biggest clients. Also hold back tasks you can't yet explain in writing, because unclear instructions produce work you'll redo.

How many hours a week do I need?

Most people start with 5 to 10 hours a week, which covers inbox triage plus two or three other recurring tasks. Scale up once your assistant knows your preferences and you've documented more of your work.

Where do I find a good virtual assistant?

You can hire directly through job boards or go through a managed service that vets and replaces assistants for you. We compared the main options in our roundup of the best virtual assistant companies.