Legal Guide For Virtual Assistants: Outsourcing And Collaborating

As your VA business grows, you may find yourself with multiple clients and periods where you have too much work. Or, you may find your clients requiring services you don’t have the skillset to deliver. Every instinct you have as a virtual assistant tells you it’s your role to support your clients and that you shouldn’t turn away additional business. Still, you don’t want to harm your reputation by overextending yourself or damaging your existing credibility by working outside of your expertise.

So, what do you do?

At this point, you might consider outsourcing or collaborating.

Benefits of outsourcing or collaborating in your Virtual Assistant business include:

• Being able to increase overall output

• Avoiding the risk of the client seeking help elsewhere

• Bringing in expertise that can increase the value of your service to the client

• Ability to reduce your working hours as and when needed

• Having a trusted partner to collaborate with

  
  

However, there are many things to consider when outsourcing your VA work or managing other service providers on behalf of a client. You’ll be either partnering with or managing another party, so you’ll need to ensure this doesn’t impact the quality of work. Depending on how you go about this, you may also end up responsible for the legal aspects and for paying for the subcontractor.

What is the difference between outsourcing and collaborating?

Outsourcing and collaborating can easily get confused because they both involve working closely with another person in order to increase output potential or to leverage outside expertise. However, there are some key differences between outsourcing and collaborating.

Collaboration is partnering up with another person, sometimes just for one particular project. Typically, you’ll have a shared goal and be working together towards the same outcome, however you decide to split up the work. Each party retains its own business identity and communicates directly with the client. When you collaborate with another professional, you are jointly responsible, and the nature of the relationship is mutual. Therefore, it is more common that the client will contract each of you and be responsible for settling fees/invoices for both parties.

Outsourcing puts the majority of responsibility and accountability on your shoulders. You delegate work to the subcontractor, remaining the key service provider and making you responsible for legal contracts (you will likely need a subcontractor agreement) and payment of the third-party provider. You will also remain responsible for all client deliverables, including those outsourced.

Do I need to let my client know if I’m outsourcing work?

If you’re outsourcing work or collaborating with a third party, then it’s highly likely that you’re needing to share client information. Under UK GDPR, you must make clients aware of who has access to their data and apply safeguards. Therefore, legally, the client should approve any use of third parties where that person/organisation has access to their information.

Even if you’re not sharing any data with your collaborator, whether you are permitted to outsource work may be part of your supplier agreement or included in your own terms and conditions. Hence, you should be sure of what is stated to ensure you’re not in breach of contract.

Moreover, whether you are legally or contractually able to outsource any portion of client work assigned to you, it’s highly advisable to discuss this with the client beforehand. In the interest of transparency and professionalism, you have an obligation to be open with the client about how their work is being delivered and by whom.

Whilst a VA may worry that needing to delegate some tasks to others might be cause for concern to the client, more likely it will be viewed as pragmatic and potentially adding value. Especially if motivated by increasing output or bringing in more niche expertise.

What legal contracts do I need to outsource or collaborate with third parties?

In some cases, you may be working with third parties, even ones you bring on board, but their contract will be with the client, and so the legal and financial side of that working relationship will be with them. Undoubtedly, this is far simpler.

However, there may be times when you wish to outsource work, as agreed with the client, but manage the subcontractor yourself. This gives you more flexibility and ownership over how much work is outsourced and gives you hierarchy to approve deliverables. A benefit of this is that you remain the key contact and supplier for your client. However, it does mean you are responsible for :

• Having the right contracts in place with the subcontractor(s)

• Paying the subcontractor on time

• Ensuring all deliverables are of the standard expected by the client

  
  

The legal contract(s) you will need depend on whether the relationship is a collaboration/partnership or outsourced/subcontracted.

Legal Contracts For VAs Outsourcing (Subcontracting) Work

When subcontracting work as a virtual assessment, it’s a Subcontractor Agreement you’ll need (sometimes referred to as an Associate Agreement). This contract would be between you (the VA) and the subcontractor (the person/third party you hire). This document defines the terms of the work they produce for you, not the client. So, in this contract, you are the end client.

The agreement should detail:

• Scope of work – what tasks or services the subcontractor will handle.

• Payment terms – how and when they’ll be paid (you pay them, not the client).

• Confidentiality and data protection – the subcontractor must keep all client data secure and comply with UK GDPR.

• Intellectual property (IP) – clarify that all work created belongs to you (and ultimately your client), not the subcontractor.

• Liability and indemnity – the subcontractor is responsible for their own errors, but you remain responsible to the client.

• Non-solicitation clause – prevents the subcontractor from approaching or working directly with your client.

• Termination clause – how either party can end the arrangement.

  
  

In addition, you may also require a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) if the subcontractor is handling client data. This may be a separate document or included within the subcontractor agreement as data processing clauses.

Legal Contracts For VAs Collaborating or Partnering With Third Parties

When collaborating with a third party - another VA, designer, or marketer - you will need either a Partnership or Collaboration Agreement.

This governs the relationship between you and another professional when working together on a client project as equals.

This agreement should detail:

• Purpose and project scope – what the collaboration is for and what each party is contributing.

• Roles and responsibilities – who’s doing what, who communicates with the client, who holds funds, etc.

• Payment and profit split – how you’ll divide fees and handle expenses.

• Client ownership – who owns the client relationship during and after the collaboration.

• Confidentiality and data sharing – mutual GDPR compliance and client confidentiality.

• Intellectual property (IP) – who owns any jointly created materials or branding.

• Dispute resolution – how disagreements will be resolved (for example, mediation or arbitration).

• Termination and exit terms – what happens if one party withdraws.

  
  

If the collaboration is long-term or ongoing, you might consider forming a business partnership under UK law, which has its own legal implications (shared liability, tax, etc.).

This may be a better option for VAs seeking a collaborator in the long term and/or across multiple projects and end-clients. Get in touch for legal advice on whether a formal partnership agreement or collaboration contract is more appropriate for you.

Other Considerations For VAs Outsourcing Client Work

A robust agreement can help to protect your business and outline key terms. However, if you’re sharing client data, you will need to be even more mindful of data protection processes and may want to ensure the third party you’re working with has practices and procedures in place to protect your client’s data as well as you do.

Especially since you may be ultimately responsible for any mishandlings or errors. You will also need to review your own insurance policy to check you are covered under professional indemnity for subcontracted work.Lastly, ensure you properly vet any person or organisation you work with to protect both yourself and your clients.

Whilst partnerships, collaborations, and working with outside experts can enhance the scope, quality, and volume of your work, it’s worth being selective about who you work with. After all, it can impact your reputation. So, to help ensure the impact is positive, be completely transparent with clients at all times and put formal agreements in place between you and your subcontractor/collaborator.

Do you need legal contracts drafted for your VA business? I support many Virtual Assistants in staying legally compliant - get in touch today for advice or assistance, and make sure you check my VA Legal Services webpage for legal resources, guides, templates, and checklists for VAs.