There are many different types of software that VA's use. In this blog I will mention a few for all VA's. There are software programs that are for specic industries like real estate and transcription. I will discuss those in later posts.

The most important software for VA's is obviously Microsoft Office. It is the main program for our work. There are different versions of Microsoft Office. The one that is the most relevant for VA's is the Home and Office Edition. There are two versions of this program, the Professional Version which retails for around $500, which is more for an agency with a lot of clients. The regular version is the one that most VA's use as it has all the programs we need including Outlookfor calandar work. If you produce ebooks or flyers, you would make use of Publisher.
There are 2 other versions of Microsoft Office in addition to these- the student version which does not come with Outlook or Publisher and the starter version which is only Word and Excel with ads.

Google Docs is a cloud sharing program that is used to share documents. Microsoft SkyDrive is similar to it. Both of them allow you to send documents to other people without attaching them.
Google docs have charts and spreadsheets similar to Microsoft Office. SkyDrive allows you to use Web Apps to share projects.

There are also programs to track hours like TimeTracker to record hours for clients when you are billing them.

Some additional programs for VA's that are useful are Dropbox for large filestorage and accounting software programs like Wave and Quickbooks

In my next post, I will talk about industry- specific programs

John Hardy