Data Entry Virtual Assistant

Data entry for businesses is when numbers, text, or other data are encoded and entered into a computer database. This data is then used for various business activities, from sending marketing emails to making better, more well-informed business decisions.

To make data analysis more effective, data entry must be done well and accurately. Data management may seem routine and simple, but it’s crucial for business growth. With accurate and insightful information, business leaders can make better decisions that lead to more streamlined operations, happier employees, satisfied customers, and overall business growth. And it all starts with complete and accurate data entry.

Excellent data entry is more than just mindlessly typing in or scanning information to be processed into the computer. The person tasked to perform data entry must ensure that whatever information entered is accurate through a combination of verifying sources, identifying anomalies, and double-checking the data.

If you’re looking for help on this side of your business, why not hire a virtual assistant for data entry?

A data entry virtual assistant (VA) can help businesses ensure the quality and accuracy of the information they refer to when making business decisions, whether to improve daily operations or craft growth strategies. A VA concentrates on this aspect of the data pipeline to ensure the information you use is accurate and up-to-date. They help minimize or eliminate errors and even potentially identify areas of improvement.

You may be wondering, why get virtual data entry services when you can just take on the task yourself? Here are the top reasons:

Save Time

Encoding can be extremely repetitive and time-consuming. You don’t just manually entering data, you also have to include other steps like cleaning, converting, and transferring huge data sets. Handling all these steps can consume your whole workweek. Instead of wasting away valuable time, business owners like you are better off delegating data entry duties to a skilled VA. Doing so frees you up to focus on more high-level tasks, including employee development and growing the company.

Flexible and Cost-Effective Solution

Hiring a full-time employee specializing in data entry may be the default solution, but it can be costly and rigid. This is because a full-time employee requires complete contracts, space in your office, and all the benefits associated with regular employees.

Hiring data entry virtual assistants can be a more flexible and cost-effective solution for your business. You can hire a VA to work part-time for your data entry requirements. When your data entry needs grow, remote staffing can grow with it. You can opt to increase your current VA’s hours or hire a team of data entry VAs to help you keep up with mounting datasets.

Data entry VAs can do a variety of tasks for businesses all related to maintaining the accuracy of the business’ databases for later analysis and use for important decisions. These tasks include but are not limited to:

Data preparation

Data preparation is the initial clean-up of data. It includes removing redundancies or incomplete data so that the final dataset is not rendered inaccurate.

Data compilation

Sometimes, data can exist in many different sources or databases. A data entry virtual assistant can sort all this information and put them together for easier consumption and data processing later on.

Data assessment

Data entry virtual assistants can look through the existing datasets in order to identify and correct errors. This way, they can assess not only the quality of data but also help identify any patterns indicating bigger data issues, like common encoding errors. This way, the data entry process itself can be improved, increasing accuracy and efficiency.

Research conflicting data

Whenever there are data conflicts between different related databases, a data entry virtual assistant can look into the issue and find the source of conflict. Their efforts in fact checking and reviewing will be crucial in ensuring you have the right data to work with.

Basic data management

More experienced data entry virtual assistants can do more than basic encoding. You can hire an expert data VA to maintain and manage your databases. They can ensure your data is:

• updated
• aligned across multiple databases
• backed up for security and safety

By handling these tasks, data entry VAs can greatly help data managers who can rechannel their focus more on complex data problems.

Data entry virtual assistants must possess certain competencies in order to do their jobs well. Some of these required data entry skills include:

Meticulousness

Data entry virtual assistants must have great attention to detail because they deal with highly repetitive tasks with small, important variations. They must be very sharp when it comes to remembering and inputting details because of the quality of the entire data processing and analysis relies on the proper entry of data.

Familiarity with Excel, Google Sheets, or other spreadsheet and/or data entry programs

In order to input data quickly and accurately, a data entry virtual assistant must already be familiar with the types of programs used for entering data. Familiarity means that they can quickly work through their data pile, and minimizes user error due to unfamiliarity with the features of the data entry program.

Above average typing speed

The most basic task a data entry virtual assistant does is actually entering information into a computer. This means that, no matter what, data entry assistants should be able to type fast in order to work fast. Therefore, it is extremely important to test a potential hire’s typing speed.

Team player

A virtual data entry assistant will never entirely work in isolation. They must always work together with the rest of the data and research team, in order to identify inefficiencies and work together to solve problems.

With data entry being the backbone of a business’ data management and analytics process, it is important to find skilled and reputable partners to help search for and hire your data entry virtual assistant. 20four7VA is one such platform with its long history and accessible online reviews. A full-service staffing agency like 20four7VA can search for qualified candidates and begin the vetting process so that business owners don’t have to spend days doing these general tasks themselves.

20four7VA will search for the most appropriate candidates for you, whether entry-level, expert, full-time, or part-time. Once these candidates are vetted and presented, a representative from the company must then interview them to make a final decision, to ensure that whoever is selected fits with the company’s culture and values, apart from being qualified for the position. 20four7VA will then aid the company in onboarding and monitoring their chosen VA.