Hire an Admin, Get a Virtual Assistant or Fix Your Systems? What a Growing Professional Services Firm Should Do First

You're busy enough to need help, and you're not sure what kind.

Maybe you've written a job ad for an admin assistant three times and never posted it. Maybe someone at a networking event swore their VA in Manila changed their life. Maybe you've heard automation is the answer, but you don't want to spend $10,000 on something your team won't use.

I've been there. My partner and I were up until about 11 most nights doing admin for our tutoring business, KeirEd, with two babies waking through the night. A lot of it was answering the same "how do I" questions we'd already answered a dozen times. Can I reschedule a lesson? What happens to my credits? What if I need to cancel? What happens over the holidays? We were about to hire an admin.

I'm Jake Keir, and I run One Less Hire from Mount Gravatt in Brisbane. We help firms grow revenue without growing payroll, using simpler processes, better follow-up and automation where it fits.

This post is for owners and managers of Australian professional services firms: accountants, bookkeepers, law firms, recruiters and consultants. You'll see what each option really costs, what each one is good and bad at, and how to work out which one your firm needs first. I'll also tell you what we did, mistakes included.

Hire, Outsource or Fix Your Systems? (The Short Answer)

If the work is repeatable and follows clear steps, fix your systems first. If it needs a person but not someone in the office, a virtual assistant can work. If it needs someone on site, or a trusted person managing clients and partners, hire.

Most firms end up needing a bit of each. The order matters, and it depends on what's really causing the overload.

Is It Too Much Work, or How the Work Gets Done?

Before you pay anyone, work out what's actually eating the hours. It's usually one of three things:

• The same questions, answered again and again. Clients ask how to upload documents, what to send and when the meeting is. The answer lives in someone's head instead of in a system.
• Leads and clients falling through the cracks. Someone enquires, nobody follows up for three days, and they go elsewhere.
• Work only one person knows how to do. When they're sick or flat out, everything stops.

A quick way to check: for one week, jot down every task that interrupts you or your team, with a tally mark each time it happens again. If the same handful of tasks fills most of the page, you've found a system problem.

Put a new hire into a process like that and they'll spend their days answering the same questions and chasing the same leads, just at $60,000-plus a year. Hiring onto a broken process gives you a more expensive broken process.

It's rarely just maths, either. You feel guilty watching your team stay back late. You wonder whether you're ready to manage someone. Handing client files to a stranger, local or offshore, feels like a risk. All of that is normal, and it's worth naming before you decide.

Option 1: Hiring an In-House Admin Assistant

SEEK puts the average advertised salary for an administration officer in admin and office support at $57,071 (SEEK). Add the 12% super guarantee (ATO) and you're at about $63,900 a year, before leave, workers' compensation insurance, recruitment, training, a computer and a desk. When we looked at hiring an admin for KeirEd, we were looking at around $70,000 to $80,000 a year.

A local hire is at their best answering phones, greeting clients in person and handling tricky situations that need judgement and a real relationship. Over time, they become part of the team and know every client by name.

The downsides are just as real. It's a fixed cost, busy month or quiet month. When they leave, you pay to recruit and train all over again. And they inherit whatever process you have. If it's messy, you've paid someone to stay busy inside the mess.

We trialled an admin at KeirEd for about a month. Most of their day went on repetitive jobs like clearing the inbox and cancelling sessions, work that didn't really need a person. The attention to detail wasn't there either, with spelling mistakes in presentations, and that's not the standard we want in front of families.

That's not a dig at one person. Finding anyone who follows a process carefully, day after day, on boring work is hard. That boring, repeatable work is exactly where systems do better.

Option 2: Getting a Virtual Assistant (Australian or Offshore)

A virtual assistant works remotely, in Australia or overseas, usually by the hour or on a monthly package.

• Australian VAs typically charge $35 to $65 an hour (VA Masters). Fifteen hours a week at those rates comes to $27,300 to $50,700 a year.
• Offshore VAs, most often in the Philippines, cost about $12 to $17 an hour for admin work through a managed agency (DotVA). Hiring one directly costs less again.

You can hire directly through marketplaces like Upwork or OnlineJobs.ph, or go through an agency. Direct is cheaper. An agency handles more of the risk, like screening and finding a replacement (DotVA).

VAs are good at inbox and calendar management, data entry, document chasing and other well-defined tasks. They struggle when the job relies on knowledge nobody has written down, or when a client needs an answer now and the VA is offline in another time zone.

Accountants and lawyers have an extra step. Registered tax practitioners must get a client's permission before giving a third party access to that client's information (Tax Practitioners Board), and the Board suggests covering it in your engagement letters (TPB). An outside VA counts as a third party. Lawyers have their own confidentiality duties under the Australian Solicitors' Conduct Rules.

The hidden cost is your time. A VA needs clear instructions, someone to check their work and someone to ask when they're stuck. That someone is usually you. We looked at this ourselves. I interviewed a couple of Filipino VAs through OnlineJobs.ph, and I worried the language gap would show up in how they spoke with families. I've heard good things about Hunt St, and I'm sure you can make a VA work well. For me, though, if I find someone great, I want them in the room with me. Running a business is lonely enough.

Option 3: Fixing Your Systems First

When I say systems, I mean more than AI. I mean four things, in this order:

1. A simpler process. Cut steps, write down the ones that stay, and stop doing what nobody needs.
2. Customer-first marketing. Answer the questions clients ask before they have to ask them, on your website, in your emails and in your onboarding.
3. Follow-up that never forgets. Every enquiry gets a reply, a reminder and a clear next step, on time.
4. Automation where it fits. Once the first three are clear, software runs the repeatable parts.

The order matters. Automating a messy process just gives you a faster mess.

For an accounting firm, a fixed system might look like this. A new enquiry gets a reply within minutes and a link to book a call. The booked call gets a reminder the day before. After the call, the prospect gets the engagement letter and a follow-up if they go quiet. Nobody on your team has to remember any of it.

1. Enquiry comes in
2. Reply in minutes, with a booking link
3. Reminder the day before
4. Engagement letter after the call
5. Follow-up if they go quiet

At One Less Hire, one workflow costs $2,000 to $5,000 to build, a connected system $5,000 to $20,000, and support $200 to $1,000 a month. I've broken those numbers down in our guide to what AI automation costs a professional services firm.

Systems have limits. They can't make judgement calls, build relationships or calm a stressed client. I'll also push back if you want to automate your whole sales process. Clients still want to talk to a real person, and how personal you keep things is a choice your firm should make on purpose.

At KeirEd, our lead follow-up saves us roughly 10 to 15 hours a week. When someone opts in but forgets to book, they get a text, and by my rough estimate about a quarter of those people now book a call who wouldn't have. The biggest change was our show rate. Our nurture messages took it from around 35–40% to around 85–90%.

10 to 15 hourssaved each week by our lead follow-up

About 1 in 4people who forgot to book now book a call

85–90%show rate, up from 35–40%

One warning. The automation sends those messages, but I write them, using what I know about our families, their worries and how people make decisions. If you let AI write your nurture sequences on its own, they tank. Let the system do the sending and keep the thinking human.

Side-by-Side Comparison: Cost, Speed, Risk and Control

Full disclosure: I sell the third column. So I've tried to be as hard on it as on the other two.

What each option costs in a year

In-house admin, full time$63,900

Australian VA, 15 hours a week$27,300 to $50,700

Offshore VA, 15 hours a week$9,360 to $13,260

Fixing your systems, year one$7,400 to $32,000

Fixing your systems, year two$2,400 to $12,000

Not sure which column your firm fits? Book a free growth mapping call and we'll work it out together.

Which Option Fits Your Firm?

Hire a person when:

• Clients ring all day and expect someone to pick up
• The work needs someone in the office or on site
• You need a trusted person managing relationships with clients and partners
• Your processes are already clean and the volume is genuinely too high

Get a VA when:

• You have 10 to 20 hours a week of varied, clearly defined admin
• The work doesn't need an instant answer
• You've sorted client permission for sharing information, where your profession needs it

Fix your systems first when:

• Your team answers the same questions every week
• Leads wait days for a reply, or never get one
• Only one person knows how key jobs get done
• You're about to hire someone mainly to "keep on top of things"

That last one is the big tell. "Keeping on top of things" usually means a system is missing.

Sometimes the honest answer is to hire. If that's you, fixing the process first still pays off, because your new person learns a written system instead of a pile of habits.

Why the Best Answer Is Often a Mix

These options work best together, in the right order:

• Systems first, then a person. Clean up the process and automate the repeatable steps. Then hire someone for what's left, which is usually the human work.
• A VA plus automation. The automation chases documents and sends reminders. The VA handles the exceptions.
• Fewer, better hires. Instead of another general admin, you hire someone who brings in revenue, and the systems carry the admin.

That last one is the whole idea behind the name One Less Hire.

Questions to Ask Before You Hire, Outsource or Automate

1. What exactly would this person do all day? Write the list.
2. How much of that list is the same every week?
3. Could someone new follow your process from a written document today?
4. How fast does a new enquiry get a reply right now?
5. Does any of this work involve client information that needs permission to share?
6. If volume doubled next year, which option would still work?

If most of your list repeats and the answer to question 3 is no, fix the process before you pay anyone.

What We Did at KeirEd: Trialling an Admin, Then Fixing the Systems

After that month-long trial, we didn't keep the role. We automated most of it instead.

The first thing we fixed was lead follow-up. A parent who opted in was guided to book a call and got reminders before it. Afterwards they got the right message for what happened: a no-show, a cancellation or a sign-up. It took a few hours to build. It saved us time and lifted conversions, because leads stopped being forgotten.

We got plenty wrong along the way. I overcomplicated the workflows, with too many steps and too many tags, and built things only to rip them out again. The hardest parts were messy data and processes we'd never written down. Our sales pipeline used to have 10 stages, with manual steps just to keep it moving. It's now about six. My rule since then: if a step doesn't move a number that matters, like your opt-in rate, booking rate, show rate or close rate, cut it. Otherwise you end up working on the system instead of the business.

That's why I keep systems as simple as possible now, and why lead follow-up is the first thing I'd fix in a professional services firm.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a VA cheaper than automation?

Run the numbers both ways. Ten hours a week from an offshore VA at $12 an hour is about $6,240 a year, every year the work exists. A workflow is built once, then costs a monthly support fee. For repeatable work, systems tend to come out ahead within a year or two. For varied work that needs a person, a VA is the better buy.

Will fixing our systems replace my staff?

It shouldn't. The aim is taking repetitive work off the people you have, so they spend more time with clients and on billable work.

Should I get an Australian or offshore VA?

Australian VAs cost more but share your time zone and know how local businesses work. Offshore VAs cost less but need clearer instructions and more checking. For client-facing work, the time zone and local knowledge are often worth paying for.

Can a VA handle confidential client files?

Yes, with the right setup: client permission where your profession requires it, secure tools, limited access and a signed confidentiality agreement.

How long until fixing our systems pays for itself?

Multiply the hours saved each month by what that time is worth, then take off the monthly running cost. Divide the build price by that number and you have your payback in months.

Find Out What Your Firm Actually Needs

You now know what each option costs, where each one breaks down, and why the order matters. Hire for judgement and presence. Use a VA for varied, well-defined tasks. Fix your systems for everything that repeats.

Before you post that job ad, find out what's really eating your team's time. The first question I'd ask any firm owner about to hire is simple: do you have clear processes this person can be trained on? If you don't, it won't matter whether you choose automation, a VA or a new hire. None of them can follow a process that doesn't exist.

Book a free growth mapping call. We'll map where your hours go, show you what to fix first, and tell you straight whether you need a system, a VA or a new hire.

Sources

1. Administration Officer salary (SEEK)
2. The final SG rate increase is coming on 1 July (ATO)
3. Virtual Assistant Cost in Australia: Full 2026 Pricing Guide (VA Masters)
4. What does a virtual assistant actually cost in Australia in 2026? (DotVA)
5. How to hire your first virtual assistant in Australia (DotVA)
6. Keeping it secure (Tax Practitioners Board)
7. Confidentiality and conflicts: what to do (Tax Practitioners Board)
8. The Australian Solicitors' Conduct Rules 2023: A Commentary (Queensland Law Society)

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