Authorize freelance admin to make a purchase and compensate for text messaging

[vinitb]

Hello upwork community,

I am considering hiring a freelance admin from upworks to help manage my schedule and a couple other admin tasks. I was wondering whether it's possible to get help with the following -

1. I would like the admin to order lunch to be delivered to my office daily via food delivery services such Uber Eats, Grubhub, or Caviar. Is that feasible? How can I manage payments for lunch? How can I securely authorize the admin to place an order and pay for it on my behalf?

2. I would like the admin to receive and send text messages from my contacts (e.g. business partners and customers). How can I compensate the admin for the cost of texting or securely authorize the admin to receive and send text messages?

[martina_plaschka]

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Vinit B wrote:

Hello upwork community,

I am considering hiring a freelance admin from upworks to help manage my schedule and a couple other admin tasks. I was wondering whether it's possible to get help with the following -

1. I would like the admin to order lunch to be delivered to my office daily via food delivery services such Uber Eats, Grubhub, or Caviar. Is that feasible? How can I manage payments for lunch? How can I securely authorize the admin to place an order and pay for it on my behalf?

2. I would like the admin to receive and send text messages from my contacts (e.g. business partners and customers). How can I compensate the admin for the cost of texting or securely authorize the admin to receive and send text messages?

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You can set up an hourly job for both tasks and compensate the freelancer for his time. I don't think it's against ToS (but am ready to be told otherwise) that the freelancer orders stuff for you if you pay for it directly, if you provide the freelancer with your credit card information to do that. (I wouldn't). 

You can give the freelancer any authorisation to your email that is necessary to perform the task you require. Nothing wrong with that if you trust the person. (I wouldn't). 

In short, you are responsible for staying safe. 

[prestonhunter]

Vinit:

There are no Upwork rules against doing these things.

These things are between you and the freelancers you hire. You can make your own decisions about how to handle these things.

It is true that you may not make payments to a freelancer directly.

But that's not what you are talking about here.

But a freelancer may use your financial accounts to order things on behalf of yourself or your company.

If you need help setting up financial accounts that your freelancer is authorized to use, you would need to talk to your credit card vendor or bank, or talk to a payment systems specialist (perhaps you could hire one on Upwork).

These really aren't Upwork questions.

re: "How can I compensate the admin for the cost of texting?"

This must be done only through Upwork.

re: "...or securely authorize the admin to receive and send text messages?"

This is entirely up to you. You could talk to a text messaging expert to help you set something up, if you need assistance.

I am not available to hire through the Community Forum, but I have personally set up many text messaging systems. Twilio is a great resource for this. It is possible using this or other resources to set up text messaging that is paid for BY YOU, but actually executed by assistants or employees.