Chamuyan Chogyonon-Davis Leaño – General Virtual Assistant, Bookkeeping

Hi! I’m Chamuyan Reizuli Kodima Chogyonon-Davis Leaño from La Trinidad, Philippines. I’m a mother of a 1-year-old baby boy. Being a first-time mom, at first I was so scared about how to balance taking good care of my child, and being a working mom cause it might be a mess for me – that I’m not able to do my work efficiently, or other way around that I can’t look after my son properly. Thankfully, my partner’s parents are very patient in taking care of my child, so I grabbed the chance to work and gain experience being a general virtual assistant.

I’m a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Business Administration majoring in Financial Management at Saint Louis University, Baguio City, Philippines. As a math wizard in my high school days, I pictured myself being an accountant or at least a bookkeeper. I took the course of Accountancy at first, but due to being unable to cope properly, I failed some subjects which led me to decide to shift to a course which is financial management that is near to accountancy.

After I graduated in 2019, it was hard to find a job since it was pre-pandemic, so I grabbed the chance to work in any field as job offers were only limited at that time, and my 1st work was being a compliance manager and officer at a Business Consultancy Firm. I gained experience here by talking to other people and my confidence was built up. I was able to use a CRM for the first time, which is Hubspot, and assist our local clients with their business by registering, renewing, closing, etc to the government agencies. Along the way, I was given a task to help our CPAs in the office, and I was like, this is my dream job, working in numbers! I love numbers! However, due to a lack of experience, I was given small tasks and limited access. I had to leave my job because I got pregnant with my baby boy.

I decided to enter the VA world after giving birth, of which my inspiration was my sister. She works comfortably at home and I was amazed at how she can help companies/business owners just on virtually, so I entered a General Virtual Assistant in a BPO company here in the Philippines that caters to Australian Real Estate but unfortunately, this was an onsite set-up.

At first, I struggled to face and speak to foreigners but thanks to my English speaking skills (Filipino accent though) I was able to communicate with them smoothly and I landed up with my very first client. My tasks were on Property Management Administration Tasks. I enjoyed working with Aussies and learning their rental process but I was exhausted by everyday traffic that I encountered which is 45 minutes to 1 hour just going home every day and vice versa.

As a person who has no experience in working from home as I was used to working on-site, and home and workplace is different, would be a big challenge for me that I want to face to sort out my priorities but I know this will make me more relaxed that can lead to focus on the jobs that will be given and not on checking the clock if the traffic already starts. Lol.

As an aspiring bookkeeper, I took paid training in Bookkeeping VA using Xero and QuickBooks, and landing a client that needs bookkeeping services would be the big challenge that I want to face, as I am only knowledgeable and have no literal experience with it, but I’m very willing to share my knowledge.

Lastly, as an aspiring Virtual Assistant, I’m very willing to learn new things that I am new to and not familiar with, as I believe, learning is an ending process, and as we learn new things, we grow.

For a copy of Chamuyan’s resume please click here.