The virtual assistant glossary.

A remote worker who handles recurring business tasks, admin, inbox and calendar, customer support, bookkeeping support, social media, on a part-time, ongoing basis. In the DotVA model a VA is a dedicated, Manila-based person working your Australian business hours, managed by an AU team, billed at one hourly rate with no super, leave or payroll tax for you to carry.

The senior tier above a VA. Where a VA executes the tasks you assign, an OBM runs your operations, systems, projects and team, and manages your other VAs and contractors, so you stop being the bottleneck. You hand an OBM an outcome, not a task list. DotVA OBMs run AUD $25-40/hr, typically once a business has a small team to coordinate.

A VA focused on supporting one person, a founder or executive, rather than the whole business: calendar, inbox, travel, meeting prep, board packs and vendor coordination. An EA supports the principal; an OBM runs the operation. DotVA virtual EAs work AEST hours at AUD $18-25/hr and are vetted for prior EA experience and discretion.

A remote person (or AI) who answers your business phone on your local hours, books appointments, takes messages and answers in your business name, without an onshore front-desk wage. A dedicated VA receptionist runs AUD $12-17/hr; an AI receptionist answers 24/7 from about $89/month. Many businesses run both.

One named person assigned to your business who learns your systems, owns recurring work and builds context over time, the opposite of a rotating pool or a per-task gig worker. Dedicated placement is what makes ownership, judgement and consistency possible. Every DotVA placement is dedicated, not shared.

A VA model where you pay per task or per ticket through a shared pool, rather than retaining one dedicated person. It suits one-off or highly variable work, but no single person builds context, so it rarely fits ownership-style recurring work like inbox, bookkeeping or customer support.

An arrangement where an agency hires, vets, trains, manages and replaces the VA, and you contract with the agency in AUD, rather than employing or contracting the VA directly. You get a single service invoice and no PAYG, super or contractor-classification risk. It is the difference between buying an outcome and running an offshore HR function yourself.

A virtual assistant based outside Australia, most commonly in the Philippines, working your Australian business hours. Offshore delivery is why a VA costs roughly a third of a loaded local hire. Hiring one is legal in Australia; through a managed agency the super, PAYG and payroll-tax rules sit with the agency, not you.

The compulsory super an Australian employer pays on top of wages for an employee, 12% from 1 July 2025. It applies to a local hire from the first dollar. It does not apply to an agency-placed offshore VA, because you pay a service fee to the agency, not wages to an employee.

A state tax on wages above a threshold (for example NSW 5.45% over $1.2M, VIC 4.85% over $1M). It applies to local employees once you cross the threshold. An agency-placed offshore VA generates no Australian taxable wages for you, so it does not attract payroll tax on the engagement.

The legal test (Fair Work and ATO) for whether a worker is your employee or an independent contractor, which determines super, PAYG and entitlements. Misclassifying an employee as a contractor is sham contracting. With the managed-agency model you have neither relationship with the VA directly: you contract the agency, and it employs the VA offshore.

A free, no-obligation conversation (30 minutes at DotVA, with the founder) to work out what you would delegate first, whether a VA fits, and what it would cost. There is no card and no hard sell; you leave with a plan even if you decide not to proceed.

A written, step-by-step record of how a task is done, so it can be handed to a VA and run consistently without you in the loop. Good SOPs are the single biggest difference between a placement that lasts and one that fails in the first month. A VA can also help build and maintain them.

A VA trained to use AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT) inside their daily workflow, so output is faster and more consistent on the structured parts of the work, drafting, research, data, while a human keeps judgement and relationships. DotVA builds AI tooling into every placement rather than treating it as an add-on.

The first weeks of a placement, where you bring the VA up to speed: kickoff call, walkthroughs, access and SOPs. Expect to invest 5-8 hours in week one, dropping to a short weekly check-in by month one. Structured onboarding is what turns a capable hire into someone who owns the work.

The screening a VA passes before reaching your shortlist. DotVA runs a published five-stage process, application and English fluency, a role-specific skills task, a cultural-fit interview with the founder, and a mock-client task, so that roughly 3-5 of every 100 applicants are ever presented to a client.

A commitment that if a placement is not the right fit inside the first 30 days, the agency re-runs the shortlist and places a new VA at no extra cost. It shifts the hiring risk from you to the agency. About 9 in 10 DotVA placements reach day 30 without needing a replacement.

The local working hours a VA keeps so you get live overlap, not overnight handoff. Manila is 2-3 hours behind the eastern states (AEST/AEDT) and exactly on Perth time (AWST, both UTC+8). DotVA VAs work your local hours regardless of city, including the half-hour Adelaide (ACST) offset.