Migration Manager Virtual Assistant: a VA who runs the caseload, while the advice stays registered

There is a particular shape of practice that types “migration manager virtual assistant” into Google at 9:40 on a Tuesday night: one registered agent, one Migration Manager subscription, forty-odd open Matters, and a document checklist on every single one of them that will not chase itself. Migration Manager (the Australian one, from MM Software Developments, with the MIA corporate partnership and 2,000+ RMAs and immigration lawyers on it) already automates the output side of the practice: it pre-fills DHA forms from client data and pushes lodgements into ImmiAccount through eLodge. What it cannot automate is the input side. Someone has to get the client data in, get the documents back, and watch the dates. That someone does not need an OMARA registration, and in a lot of one-agent practices, that someone is already offshore.

The daily rhythm a VA runs in your Migration Manager

Dates first, always. Before anything else gets touched, the critical dates get a pass: substantive visa expiries coming up across the caseload, BVA and BVB expiries on clients waiting out a decision, and every s56 request for information with its clock running. Migration Manager will hold these dates and remind you about them, but a reminder in a system nobody is watching is just a record of when things went wrong. Your VA watches it every morning and puts a weekly expiry-report summary in front of you so the whole caseload’s deadline picture fits on one screen.

Then the portal. Overnight, clients have half-filled questionnaires and uploaded a passport photo taken at an angle only they understand. The VA processes the returns: completed questionnaires reviewed and imported into the Matter, illegible or wrong documents bounced back with a plain-English note about what is actually needed, and the stalled ones chased. Migration Manager’s client portal is secure and it is good, but it is a letterbox, not a debt collector; the follow-up that gets a police check out of a client in Punjab or a payslip out of a client in Parramatta is a human on a cadence.

Underneath both sits the discipline that makes the whole product work: data entry into the Matter that is actually correct. Migration Manager’s core trick is that the client’s details, passport data, visa history and family composition live once against the Matter and flow into every form and every eLodge submission from there. That is a superpower when the fields are right and a photocopier for errors when they are wrong. The VA owns keeping them right: details entered from source documents, not from memory, and checked against the passport bio page rather than the client’s spelling of their own name in an email.

Document checklists are the long middle of the day. Every subclass has its list, and the list is where matters go to stall: skills assessments that take months, police checks from three countries, English test results, relationship evidence that arrives as 400 unsorted photos. The VA works each Matter’s checklist until it is green, files everything against the Documents tab under your naming convention, and flags the trap items, the police check or medical that will age out if the application does not lodge soon, before the trap springs.

Lodgement prep is where Migration Manager earns its subscription and the VA earns theirs. Forms generated from the Matter pre-filled (the 956, Form 80, Form 1221, whichever the application needs) and queued for your review rather than emailed as blank PDFs for the client to mangle. When the matter is ready, the VA uses eLodge to push the Matter’s data into the ImmiAccount application, checks the prefill against the file, and hands you a lodgement that needs your judgement and your declaration rather than your typing. You review, you lodge. That sequence never varies.

And then money. Invoices raised in the Accounts module against the fee agreement as each stage falls due, receipts recorded, and outstanding balances worked on an invoice-chasing cadence you have approved, which matters in a business where the work is front-loaded and the client’s motivation to pay declines the moment the visa is granted. Where clients’ funds are involved, the VA prepares inside the trust module and you authorise; more on that line below.

The honest bit

Three things Migration Manager will not do, whoever you hire.

It automates output, not input. The form prefill, the eLodge push, the merge documents: all brilliant, all downstream of a human getting accurate data and complete documents into the Matter. A one-agent practice that buys Migration Manager and skips the admin capacity has bought a faster way to be behind. The software halves the typing; it does none of the chasing, and the chasing is most of the job.

Its reminders are only as good as its data. The BVB expiry alert fires because someone entered the BVB when it was granted. The s56 deadline appears because someone logged the request the day it landed. Miss the entry and the system is confidently silent while a client falls out of status. This is exactly why the VA’s unglamorous file discipline, dates in on the day, file notes current, email filed to the Matter, is the actual product you are buying.

And the seats are per named user, so budget for the VA’s login rather than sharing yours. This one is not just licensing hygiene: Migration Manager attributes actions to the user who made them, and in a practice that answers to OMARA, an audit trail showing who entered what, and that lodgement decisions trace to the registered agent, is worth far more than a seat fee. A shared login also makes it impossible to scope the VA’s permissions properly, which defeats the point of the system having them.

What stays with you

Everything the registration exists for. Providing immigration assistance for a fee is reserved under the Migration Act for OMARA-registered agents, Australian legal practitioners and exempt persons, so the assessment of visa options, eligibility and strategy, the advice to the client, the declarations, and the decision to lodge stay with you without exception. The VA prepares the file underneath that judgement and never substitutes for it: when a client’s portal message or phone call drifts from “where is my police check” into “do you think we should wait for the new occupation list”, the standing rule is log it, escalate it, and let you answer it.

Client money is the second hard line. Migration Manager’s trust accounting is NSW Law Society certified, which speaks to the software’s rigour, not to who may authorise a transaction; your obligations over clients’ funds sit with you under the Code of Conduct or the legal profession rules. The VA raises invoices, records receipts at your direction, assembles transfer paperwork and chases debtors. You authorise every movement, and if you want the harder version, the VA’s user permissions can keep the Accounts side out of reach entirely.

Fee decisions, refund decisions, and anything you would not delegate to a junior in the next room stay with you too. The full regulatory picture for the practice, supervision, the OMARA boundary, the file standards, is on the migration agents page.

What it costs and where to start

Migration Manager caseload admin sits on the admin tier, $12-17 AUD an hour excl GST, typically 10-15 hours a week, which lands around $500-1,100 a month, with hours that flex up when a program-year change floods the inbox. Placement takes 7-10 business days, with 5-7 days supervised inside your Migration Manager before any solo work, starting on questionnaires and document chasing and graduating to lodgement prep once you have seen the data quality with your own eyes. The $500 deposit is refundable and credits to your first month, the first 30 days carry a recalibrate-or-replace guarantee, and there is no lock-in beyond 14 days notice.

For the wider pricing logic, the VA cost guide sets out all three tiers against what Australian hires cost. Or skip ahead and book a discovery call with Jenn, who has placed 87+ VAs into Australian businesses since 2024 and takes every call herself. Bring your open Matters count and this week’s expiry report; the gap between the two is the job description.