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Ten SOPs every VA placement runs on.

The standard operating procedures we hand to every DotVA VA in week one. Editable, opinionated, calibrated against real placements. Steal them whether you're hiring through us or anyone else.

Updated 19/05/2026 · ~3,000 words total · Reviewed by Jenn Yang

Each SOP is structured the same way: When to use it, The procedure (numbered steps), Tools, and Common mistakes. Click any SOP to expand. Copy the text, paste into Notion / Google Doc / your wiki, and edit to match your business.

01Inbox triage SOP

When to use: Daily, first thing AEST morning (8-9am). Inbox triage is the highest-leverage delegation – most founders save 4-6 hours a week.

The procedure

  1. Open the principal's inbox. Skim every unread email for sender + subject.
  2. Apply labels in this priority order: URGENT (needs principal today), FYI (read-only, low-priority info), WAITING-ON (we've sent something and we're waiting), CUSTOMER-SUPPORT (deflect or escalate), SPAM/UNSUBSCRIBE, DELEGATED (you'll handle).
  3. For DELEGATED items, draft a reply in Claude or ChatGPT using the brand voice template. Save as draft (do not send).
  4. For URGENT items, write a 1-line summary at the top of a daily Slack briefing.
  5. For WAITING-ON items, check whether the deadline has passed. If yes, send a polite follow-up draft for principal review.
  6. Mark CUSTOMER-SUPPORT items handled if they match a known FAQ – otherwise escalate to principal with proposed response.
  7. Send the daily Slack briefing by 9:30am AEST. Format: 3 URGENT items + 2-3 WAITING-ON updates + count of FYI/spam dispatched.

Tools

Gmail / Outlook labels · Claude Pro or ChatGPT Plus · Slack for daily briefing · A shared FAQ doc for customer support deflection

Common mistakes

Sending drafts directly without review (week 1-2 only). Over-labelling (more than 6 labels and the system stops working). Triaging the principal's inbox without writing access to their calendar (you'll create dependencies you can't resolve).

02Calendar management SOP

When to use: Continuously throughout the AEST business day. Calendar conflicts compound – fixing them at end-of-day is too late.

The procedure

  1. Maintain a 30-minute buffer before and after every external meeting. No exceptions in the first 90 days.
  2. Defend the principal's deep-work blocks (typically Mon/Wed 8-11am AEST). Booking requests inside those blocks get a soft decline + alternative slots offered.
  3. For every new external meeting, send an agenda email 24 hours before. Include: meeting purpose (1 line), the 3 questions we want answered, attendees + roles, dial-in / location.
  4. Five minutes before every meeting, post a Slack DM to the principal: "[Meeting name] starts in 5 minutes. Brief: [3 lines]. Last contact with [attendee]: [date + summary]."
  5. During the meeting, take notes in Otter, Fireflies, or by hand. Within 2 hours of the meeting ending, draft a written recap: decisions made, action items with owners + dates, next steps.
  6. Send the recap to all attendees by end of business day (the same day, not the next). Tag your principal's action items in their task tool.
  7. Weekly Friday review: scan next week's calendar, flag conflicts, confirm any tentative bookings, kill anything that's drifted.

Tools

Google Calendar or Outlook · Calendly or Cal.com for external scheduling · Otter, Fireflies, or Granola for meeting notes · A task tool (Asana / Notion / ClickUp) for action item tracking

Common mistakes

Accepting back-to-back meetings without buffer (the principal will burn out within a quarter). Sending agendas the morning of (too late for attendees to prep). Skipping the 5-minute pre-meeting brief – it's the highest-leverage 90 seconds of your day.

03Invoice chasing / AR follow-up SOP

When to use: Tuesdays. AR chasing on Mondays gets ignored ("they're still settling into the week"); after Thursday, it sits unanswered until the next Monday.

The procedure

  1. Open Xero / MYOB / your billing system. Filter all invoices in the "awaiting payment" status that are 1+ day overdue.
  2. For each, pull the most recent contact thread. Was there a payment commitment? A dispute? Silence?
  3. Send a tiered reminder cadence:
    • Day 1 overdue: friendly nudge – "Hi [name], just a quick note our invoice [#X] is showing as due. Let me know if there's any issue or if I can resend the PDF."
    • Day 7: firmer – "Hi [name], following up on invoice [#X], now 7 days overdue. Could you confirm a payment date this week?"
    • Day 14: escalation – CC the principal. "We've not had a response on invoice [#X] (now 14 days overdue). Could we lock in a call this week to resolve?"
    • Day 30+: formal collections process – escalate to principal for decision (write-off, collections agency, legal).
  4. Log every contact in the CRM or the invoice's notes field. Date, channel, summary, response.
  5. Update the principal in a weekly Tuesday AR summary: total outstanding, top 3 overdue, blockers, expected collections this week.

Tools

Xero / MYOB / Reckon · Email templates saved in Gmail or Outlook · CRM for contact logging · A shared AR tracker (spreadsheet or Notion DB)

Common mistakes

Apologising in follow-up emails ("Sorry to bother you about this…"). Don't – it weakens the position. Letting the cadence slide (day 7 becomes day 12 becomes day 25). Failing to escalate at day 14, which trains slow-paying clients to keep being slow.

04Lead qualification SOP

When to use: Every inbound lead, within 4 business hours of arrival. Speed-to-lead is the single biggest predictor of conversion.

The procedure

  1. Triage the inbound (form fill, email, phone, referral). Confirm contact details and which channel they came from.
  2. Score the lead against the qualification framework – typically BANT (Budget / Authority / Need / Timeline) or a custom scorecard. Tag in CRM as HOT (matches all 4), WARM (matches 2-3), COLD (matches 0-1).
  3. For HOT leads, book a 15-minute qualifying call into the principal's calendar inside 24 hours. Send a calendar invite with a 3-question agenda.
  4. For WARM leads, send a tailored email with a relevant case study + a calendar link. Reply within 4 hours.
  5. For COLD leads, send the auto-responder template with the FAQ link + a "we'll be in touch if it makes sense" line. Move to nurture sequence.
  6. Update the CRM with the qualification notes within 1 hour of contact. Include the disqualifier reason for COLD leads – saves the next person retracing your steps.
  7. End of week: produce a leads-summary report – total inbound, by channel, by score, by stage. Flag any HOT lead that hasn't progressed in 7+ days.

Tools

CRM (HubSpot / Pipedrive / GoHighLevel / Salesforce) · Calendly for qualifying-call booking · A scored qualification framework written down (we'll write it with you in week 1 of placement)

Common mistakes

Letting leads sit overnight (you lose conversion to faster competitors). Skipping CRM logging – without it the principal can't see the pipeline. Scoring leads on gut instead of the written framework, which leads to bias toward leads that "feel right" rather than match the buyer profile.

05Social media posting SOP

When to use: Weekly, Friday – content drafted for the coming Monday-Friday. Daily – execute the scheduled posts and respond to comments inside 4 hours.

The procedure

  1. Friday morning: review the content calendar for the upcoming week. Confirm with principal that the topics still align with priorities.
  2. For each post, draft in Claude or ChatGPT using the brand voice prompt. Include: hook line, 2-3 body sentences, CTA. Add 1-3 hashtags max – over-hashtagging signals "auto-generated."
  3. Source or generate the image. Stick to the brand colour palette and font stack. Save originals in the shared drive at /social/[year]/[week-number]/.
  4. Schedule via the platform native scheduler (Meta Business Suite, LinkedIn Scheduler) or via a tool like Buffer / Later. Stagger posting times across the day – natural-looking, not robotic.
  5. Daily during business hours, scan for new comments / DMs / mentions. Respond to genuine engagement within 4 hours. Escalate complaints or high-stakes mentions to principal.
  6. Friday end-of-day: produce a weekly performance summary – reach, engagement rate, top post, dud post, learning. Adjust the next-week calendar based on what's working.

Tools

Meta Business Suite + LinkedIn native scheduler · Canva or Photoshop for image work · Claude / ChatGPT with a brand voice prompt saved · A shared Notion content calendar (or Airtable)

Common mistakes

Sending engagement-bait that doesn't match the brand. Replying to every comment within minutes (kills your other work, signals desperation). Posting through Buffer/Later when the platform's own scheduler now has equal features and better reach.

06Customer support first-response SOP

When to use: Continuously during AEST business hours. Target: every customer message gets a first-response acknowledgement within 4 hours.

The procedure

  1. Open all customer support channels: support inbox, live chat, social DMs, ticketing system (Zendesk / Intercom / HelpScout).
  2. Sort messages by SLA – paying-customer issues first, then prospects, then general enquiries.
  3. For each, tag the message type: BUG, HOW-DO-I, BILLING, FEATURE-REQUEST, COMPLAINT, OTHER.
  4. If the message matches an item in the FAQ doc, reply with the FAQ answer adapted to their context. Don't paste verbatim – adapt 30% of the wording so it reads human.
  5. If it requires escalation (bug, complaint, billing dispute), acknowledge the customer immediately ("Thanks for flagging – I'm pulling [X] on this and I'll have an update for you within 24 hours"), then escalate internally with full context.
  6. Close the loop on every escalation. The principal will move on; the customer won't. You're the one who follows back up.
  7. End-of-week: review which message types are coming in most. Propose adding to the FAQ for anything that's been asked 3+ times.

Tools

Help desk (Zendesk / Intercom / HelpScout / Front) · A shared FAQ doc · Canned responses saved in the help desk · Internal channels (Slack) for escalation routing

Common mistakes

Replying with the FAQ answer verbatim (customers can tell). Routing every complaint to the principal – most can be resolved at first-contact. Not closing the loop on escalations, which leaves customers chasing you for updates.

07Weekly client report SOP

When to use: Friday afternoons. Reports landing in client inboxes on Monday morning hit before they've started their week.

The procedure

  1. For each active client, pull the agreed KPI dashboard. Snapshot the week's numbers (Mon-Fri).
  2. Compare against the previous week. Flag any KPI that moved more than ±10%.
  3. Pull the relevant qualitative context – campaign launches, market events, anything that explains a number move.
  4. Draft the report in the template – 3 sections: This week's wins, What we're watching, Next week's focus.
  5. Have Claude or ChatGPT review the draft for clarity. Fix anything that reads as filler.
  6. Send the report by 6pm Friday AEST. Use the standard subject line format: "[Client] weekly · w/e [Friday date] · [headline metric]".
  7. Log the report send-time and any client reply in the CRM. Track reply rate over time – if clients stop replying, the report has stopped being useful.

Tools

Dashboards (Looker Studio / Google Analytics / native platforms) · Notion or Google Doc report templates · Claude / ChatGPT for clarity review · CRM for delivery tracking

Common mistakes

Reporting numbers without context (a 15% drop in clicks is meaningless without "we paused the campaign on Wednesday for QA"). Sending the report after hours Friday (it gets buried). Using filler ("things went well this week") instead of specific qualitative wins.

08CRM hygiene SOP

When to use: 30 minutes daily, expanded to a 2-hour weekly cleanup on Friday. CRM hygiene is the SOP every business says they'll do and nobody does – until they hire a VA.

The procedure

  1. Daily: log every new contact, every interaction (email/call/meeting), every deal-stage change inside the CRM the same day it happens. Same day, not the next morning.
  2. For every new contact added, populate: name, email, phone, company, role, source, stage, owner. No half-filled records.
  3. Tag every contact with the lifecycle stage – LEAD, MQL, SQL, OPPORTUNITY, CUSTOMER, CHURNED.
  4. Friday weekly cleanup: identify contacts with missing fields. Fill or archive (mark "INCOMPLETE - reviewed [date]"). Identify deals stuck in a stage for 30+ days – surface to principal for triage.
  5. Once a month, run a duplicate-detection scan. Merge duplicate contacts and deals. Deletion is irreversible – always merge, never delete.
  6. Quarterly, refresh contact info for the top 50 contacts (verify email still valid, role hasn't changed, company still exists). Use LinkedIn + email verification tools.

Tools

HubSpot / Pipedrive / GoHighLevel / Salesforce – whatever the business uses · LinkedIn for contact verification · An email verifier (Hunter, NeverBounce) for quarterly refresh · Reporting dashboard for weekly stuck-deal surfacing

Common mistakes

Treating the CRM as optional ("I'll add it later"). Adding contacts without source-tagging – without that, attribution is permanently broken. Deleting contacts to "clean up" – once gone, the history goes with them. Always merge or archive.

09New client onboarding SOP

When to use: Every new client, the day the contract is signed. The first 14 days set the tone for the entire relationship.

The procedure

  1. Send the welcome email within 2 hours of contract signing. Template includes: thank-you, kickoff call calendar link, access list of what they'll need to grant us, what to expect in week 1.
  2. Create the client folder structure in the shared drive – typically /clients/[client-name]/ with subfolders for contracts, deliverables, working files, reports.
  3. Add them to internal channels – a dedicated Slack channel or shared Notion space. Pin the kickoff agenda + the deliverables list.
  4. Run the kickoff call within 5 business days. Agenda: confirm scope, confirm KPIs, confirm reporting cadence, confirm escalation contacts, ask "what does a great month-one look like?"
  5. Send the kickoff recap within 24 hours of the call. Include: scope confirmation, KPIs, weekly report cadence, primary contacts, expected first deliverable date.
  6. Day-14 check-in. 15-minute call. "How's it going? What's surprised you?" Capture feedback, adjust if needed.
  7. Day-30 review. 30-minute call. Walk through the first month's outputs. Adjust scope or cadence if anything's misaligned.

Tools

Email template (Gmail / Outlook canned response) · Notion or Google Drive for client folder structure · Slack for shared channels · Calendly for kickoff + check-in calls

Common mistakes

Sending the welcome email the next day (kills momentum). Skipping the day-14 check-in (most "I didn't know we were doing it that way" comes from this gap). Letting the first month go without a formal review – clients quietly disengage when they don't get a structured retrospective.

10Meeting prep + minutes SOP

When to use: Every meeting longer than 15 minutes. Internal stand-ups can skip the formal prep but still need action items captured.

The procedure

  1. 24 hours before the meeting, draft the agenda. Include: meeting purpose (1 line), the 3 questions we want answered, attendees with their roles, dial-in/location.
  2. Send the agenda to all attendees. Title format: "[Meeting type] · [Topic] · [Date]".
  3. For external meetings, prepare a 1-page brief on every external attendee – name, company, role, our previous contact summary, any open items between us and them.
  4. 5 minutes before the meeting, send the principal a 3-line Slack brief: "[Meeting] starts now. Brief: [3 lines]. Key questions to ask: [2-3 bullets]."
  5. During the meeting, take notes in Otter / Fireflies / Granola or by hand. Capture: decisions made, action items (with owner + due date), open questions.
  6. Within 2 hours of the meeting ending, draft the recap. Send to all attendees by end of business day.
  7. Log every action item in the team task tool with owner + due date. Follow up Monday morning to confirm progress.

Tools

Calendar + meeting briefs in Notion or Google Doc · AI transcription (Otter, Fireflies, Granola) · Task tool (Asana / ClickUp / Linear) for action item tracking · Slack for the 5-min pre-meeting brief

Common mistakes

Sending the agenda 30 minutes before the meeting (no one preps). Skipping the recap because "it was a short meeting" – short meetings produce action items just like long ones. Letting action items sit in the recap email instead of cascading into the task tool. They disappear when they're not in the system the team checks daily.

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