I have a question on the following virtual tools.

Basecamp - what are the main reasons for using this? If my projects for clients entail Internet Marketing and Social Marketing tasks, and not really the creation of office documents, would that be something I would have a need for?

*I don't want to get in the habit of having a client log-in to basecamp just to check up on me. I am a business owner and I don't feel the need to have a clocked in and out record of my time to show them.

I will provide them with a weekly status report of tasks completed. And I thought I could use Paymo for a time tracking program.

Your thoughts on Basecamp, freshbooks, paymo would be appreciated. I am getting confused on what virtual tool I would use. Thank you!!

Stacey

Hi Stacey,

I just started using Basecamp a month ago and I honestly don't know what I would do without it. I have a new client who I handle all of her online marketing for. Everything. I work with 2 amazing subcontractors who do copywriting and website maintenance for me. There are so many tasks involved with this client's business that I needed Basecamp in order to keep it all in one place.

If you are doing multiple internet marketing tasks then Basecamp is an ideal tool. I enter all of the tasks myself. My client isn't very technological so she doesn't want to be bothered with learning Basecamp. She sends me the stuff via email and I assign the work in Basecamp. We also meet once a week and any tasks she wants done are assigned by me as well after the meeting.

Basecamp allows you to set permissions to allow only certain people to see certain things. I have a few other client projects in Basecamp but I am the only one who has access to them. No one else knows they are there.

Right now, I don't need my clients to use Basecamp. That may change in the future.

I operate as a solo VA who sub-contracts. Because of this I use my own time-tracking and my subs use their own. If I were to operate as a multi-VA business then I would most likely have one standard time tracking tool that allows me to keep track of everyone's hours. For that I would consider MyHours. I am not familiar with paymo but I will check it out.

Anyway, that's my experience with Basecamp thus far. I am still a new user but I know there are other members with greater experience. I'm sure they will have a different spin on it.

Good luck Stacey!

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Shari Sultana
Online Business Manager (marketing for retail ecommerce)

Thanks for your feedback Shari. I appreciate your comments and reply.

I used basecamp when I first started as a VA and used it almost a year. But for me basecamp just was not doing some of the things I would really like it to do. I had so much I wanted to keep track of do, blah blah blah. I just recently tried deskaway. You might want to try that too. It is a free account and very user friendly.

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Tricia
Saving You Time Is My Business