What are virtual offices & how to choose the best one?

Both virtual jobs and virtual office spaces are quite in vogue these days, because ‘the times, they are a changin,!’ In a world where startups are cropping up like mushrooms, there is room for both small and large businesses and of course, all your dreams! Virtual office spaces offer an opportunity to you for remote working by providing you with a wide variety of business functions accessible via internet.

Also, the best part is that it also allows organizations to create and maintain a presence/address in a desirable location without needing to pay rent for an actual space. Sounds interesting, eh? Let us discuss in detail all about virtual office spaces and how it helps budding entrepreneurs and their teams.

What are Virtual Offices?

what are virtual offices As the name suggests, a virtual office is a kind of a flexible workplace for businesses having the benefits of a physical office without any space or desks. The idea for a virtual office came from the executive suite industry and was effectively launched in year 1994 by Ralph Gregory when he founded the aptly named ‘The Virtual Office, Inc’.

One of the key features of a virtual office is the flexibility it offers to both employees and freelancers alike to work from a home office, remote location or even on-the-go via a mobile device. The advent of web-based office productivity software and services like video conferencing has accelerated the practice even more. Virtual offices lead to greater productivity as employees are free from both deadly commute issues and other related administrative tasks. Every employee is free to work from a location that is most convenient to them. Also, such businesses are not restricted to hiring local employees only. The virtual office arrangement, therefore, expands job options for employees and hiring options for businesses.

There is no dearth of virtual office spaces in metro cities, one of the best among them being myHQ workspaces, which also allows you to subscribe to virtual office plans with myHQ!

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Pros of a Virtual Office

The twofold appeal of a virtual office is that it is both cost-effective and requires no maintenance or upkeep or staffing costs from one’s end. Also, since a virtual office provides you with a proper mailing and even a physical address, it makes your business look even larger than it is, which obviously helps in enhancing your company’s reputation.
A virtual office also cuts down your commute time completely and saves you the hassle of travelling to and fro, thereby reducing travel expenses and fuel costs.
It allows you a work-life equilibrium since in a physical office, people are constantly shuffling their roles, handling team politics, slogging away for hours at night and add to that the stress caused due to commuting issues. Virtual offices instead offer you a good work-life balance and it is totally upto you how you manage your time and life; there are no external factors involved which would interfere with your productive time.
Virtual offices enable you to get out of the monotonous routine of reporting to work every day and therefore, there is little scope of people taking leaves or going AWOL.
Since virtual office employees are saving up both time and extra stress, they are effective in meeting deadlines and filling in on their respective roles.
A virtual office allows tremendous cost-cutting. Owning an office has a lot of expenses attached to it like maintenance charges, electricity and other miscellaneous expenses which a virtual office helps save and which is, in fact, a lot of money.
A virtual office has employees from a vast pool of talent and skill since there are no geographical boundaries.

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Cons of a Virtual Office

The cons of a virtual office are few, but cannot be overlooked. There are reduced physical employee reactions and there can be no proper work culture established since all the employees work from wherever they deem fit. There are people who just operate better while having timely interactions with their fellow team members. Self-disciplined individuals also find it difficult not working from a physical office as they tend to get distracted more often. Last but not the least, texts, social media, tele-conferencing and emails are no real substitute for face-to-face interactions and there are times when there are message distortions owing to the lack of one on one talks.

What are Virtual Offices and why do you need them?

what are virtual offices Unprofessionalism is not entertained in any part of the world, regardless of what you do and where you work. However, virtual offices have made their mark in the sense that a person is as much a professional working from a place they like as the person who works from a fixed workstation for 8-9 hours.

Moreover, virtual offices give a professional corporate image to startups operating at genuinely low costs. Overall, it can be safely said that the benefits of a virtual office trump its minor cons any day and it is easily a win-win option for any small or big business to resort to a virtual office for better performance and employee engagement.

What are Virtual Offices for GST Registration?

Besides the aforementioned benefits of working from a virtual office, one major benefit that it provides the same office addresses for GST registrations as well. The premium location of the virtual office can be used as an address for company registration as well. You will also be provided with a No Objection Certificate, Electricity bill, Rent-Agreement, Signage and other required documents. If you are a small business, the documents you will need for GST registration are as follows:

PAN Card of the business or applicant
Business registration or incorporation certificate
Identity and address proof of the Primary Authorized Signatory
Proof of place of business
Valid Indian bank account number
A Digital signature of the authorized person who can sign the GST application.

You can also set up a business address in multiple cities where you want to expand your business, however, you would be required by law to verify your identity and go through a detailed registration process in order to set up your virtual office.

How to choose a virtual office for your business?

One of the key drivers behind holding down a virtual office would be its location. Since you would be using its address, which would be splashed across your visiting cards, website and any product or marketing material that you have, it is crucial that you pick a location that is premium and larger client base.

A virtual office is primarily an address that businesses use for multiple use cases. Virtual offices are designed to be flexible, reliable and cost-effective, so you must look for one which aligns with your business goals and requirements. Also, you must consider different virtual office providers and see which one fits the billl. You might be tempted to go for the cheapest deal, however, you must compare the price tiers for different virtual offices and lock down one which both suits your budget and requirements.

myHQ- Why it is the best virtual office for you

If you are someone based out of Delhi looking to set up their business out of a virtual office, look no further! myHQ is available in all prime locations across Delhi NCR and offers virtual office services at only INR 999! It will give you both a professional mailing address, company and GST Registration as well, besides providing access to official communication, mail handling, courier services and much more without having to pay for a physical office space. Like it says on their official website, ‘you play for only what you see!’ This unique and collaborative workspace is highly reliable as it boasts of a strong presence across 60 spaces and over 4000 community members using the spaces regularly.

So, what are you waiting for? Good things in life are NOT to be missed! Subscribe to virtual office plans with myHQ and let the fun begin!

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