The new year is when gym memberships are purchased, sweets and carbs are forsworn, and we strive to reinvent ourselves and redouble our efforts to reach personal goals. Many entrepreneurs and small business owners have similar goals for their business. They want to improve growth, boost efficiency, and get organized. To reach your goals in the new year, you may want some help from a virtual assistant. Here are some ways they can help get your fiscal year started right:

• • Clean up your calendar. Do you find you miss meetings frequently because you never remembered to put them in your calendar? Or do you have to cancel calls because you are overbooked? One of the easier and more important tasks you can have your VA help you with is scheduling and calendaring. Give them access and allow them to organize and clean up your professional calendar or even your personal calendar (in case events overlap). Be sure to let your VA know who or which meetings tend to take priority so they can work more autonomously. You can also ask your assistant to book business travel, propose new times for client meetings that conflict with existing obligations, and coordinate internally to organize team meetings.

• • Step up your online presence. Being active on social media—whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Pinterest—is critical to your overall marketing plans and business growth. Finding the time to spend on social media or perusing through marketing analytics when you’re busy running a business, however, feels impossible. Instead, have your virtual assistant create content for you, interact with social media followers, or add more contacts to your social networks. An experienced content marketing VA can also help with writing blogs, creating infographics, or finding marketing influencers for your organization.

• • Dig through data. Your business likely collects data in myriad ways, including contact forms that get saved in a CRM, website data collected in Google Analytics, and financial information generated by your accounting software. Few business people take full advantage of this data and fewer still have time to digest it so that it can be analyzed meaningfully alongside other data. Instead of letting this data go to waste, have your VA compile and organize it in a meaningful way, such as by creating spreadsheets and charts, PowerPoint presentations, or generating financial reports. With this data in front of you, you can get a more informed view of your business’ financial state and its growth, enabling you to make better strategic decisions.
  • Catch up and keep up with bookkeeping. Few entrepreneurs enjoy bookkeeping, but keeping accurate financial records it is a necessary part of running a business, employing workers, and keeping track of expenses. Many startup and small business owners take this responsibility on themselves, but, without the proper tools, time, or attention span, information entered into bookkeeping software is often incomplete or inaccurate. Rather than hire a full-time bookkeeper, consider hiring a VA to do your expenses for you. A reputable virtual assistant company will pair you with someone who already has the skills to crunch your numbers as well as the knowledge of accounting software, which can ensure your work gets done quickly and correctly.

The new year can be an excellent opportunity to motivate your employees, your colleagues, or your team members to innovate, work hard, and remain tenacious. Virtual assistants can be a great tool for catalyzing that effort into results.