I don’t know about you but life felt so easy when there was just one password to remember, but now it seems that everything we do has a password. As your VA business grows, you’ll find yourself having to manage not only dozens of them for your business but potentially hundreds, depending on the number of clients you have and the work that you are doing for them.
Keeping track can become overwhelming, if you try to manage them with a paper notebook or an excel spreadsheet. Neither of which are very secure and have the potential to be stolen or lost.
I was a little skeptical about moving passwords to an online application but after a lot of research and trialling a couple of the online tools. Here are 3 reasons, I chose Lastpass to manage the passwords for my business and my clients.
Improves Security
Do you keep your passwords in a spreadsheet or – even worse – in your browser? By managing sensitive information with these unencrypted tools, you risk exposing it to the world. Imagine how much time and money would be lost if your passwords were compromised and your website (or that of a client!) were hacked? That’s the risk you take if you’re not taking steps to protect the passwords you use. This way, I only have to remember one main password and the system does the rest!
Password Generation
Last pass has a password generation tool within it, that also allows you to specify the number of characters you need in your password and can be customisable for your individual needs. Then, the system remembers it for you – so you no longer have to be “smart” in trying to remember or type in those random words. When I was serving in the military – I would spend weeks trying to remember the 9 character random letter password that the computer system generated for me every 3 months and often it could be found on a post it note inside my notebook or under the keyboard! But don’t tell the IT Security department…
Easy Password Sharing
Another great feature is the ability to share passwords via digital encryption and/or without actually having to tell someone what the password is ever. This is a greater security benefit but allows the client to revoke access easily.
Sometimes on bespoke projects, a client may wish to share access to something temporarily and want to revoke access when the job is completed – this makes it easy to do so. Personally, I create folders within my LastPass for each individual client and so if I needed to share a set of passwords with an associate, I can share it easily and not have to panic about making sure I have given them access when they don’t necessarily need it at that stage.
An Affordable Solution
When starting out in your VA business, it can feel everything has a cost associated it to it. Well, you might be interested to know that there is a free version of the software and for the majority of people this is sufficient. If you’d like to use LastPass on your mobile device or have the ability to synch between your phone, your iPad and your computer etc, or to track logins, you can upgrade to a premium account for just $24 per year. (There is another layer, which is called an Enterprise account, yes it has even greater advantages, but for most VAs, especially on start up – you don’t need it.)
Security online—especially when you’re dealing with client websites and other accounts—is critical to your business success and reputation. LastPass makes it easy to keep client records safe, and because it’s so easy and fast, you’ll find you rely on it not only for it’s safety, but for the convenience of one-click logins everywhere.
(Please note this is NOT an affiliate post – but just me sharing the tools that I use in my VA business – Your Executive Secretary Limited)
Thank you for this post Amanda; a very useful insight into LastPass, especially the piece on how you can share passwords, without actually having to let the end user know that password. I also like the sound of being able to put passwords into folders. Personally, I have always used Norton ID Safe, which i have found okay; it integrates with IE quite nicely (it is a bit hit and miss on Chrome) plus there is a mobile app. I will put this one on my list of tools to trial.
My pleasure Nicola, I haven’t tried Norton ID Safe, the most important thing I think to take from this, is it doesn’t matter which tool we use as long as its secure and gives our clients the re-assurance they need that we take their data and their security seriously.
Thanks for this Amanda. I also use LastPass and it is fantastic! I feel so much more secure having everything saved in one place. One of my clients also uses it and it’s been great for us, as he hosts is a website developor and hosts over 50 websites – a lot of passwords!
Rose, I can definitely see how it would help with a client with that many sites to support – definitely worth the small investment there.
Great article, thanks Amanda, I’ll be checking this out at the weekend
My pleasure Mandy. It’s a great tool for managing passwords for you and your clients.