Phone systems for accounting practices
An accounting practice is not one business, it is three or four different ones depending on the month. A phone system that suits you in February is the wrong shape in October, and this page is mostly about that.
A practice that changes shape across a year
Most businesses have a busy week. A practice has a busy season, and it is long enough that the phones behave like a different company during it.
Through the quiet months the volume is manageable and calls reach the person they were meant for. Through the peak the same setup produces a queue nobody can see, clients who cannot get through, and people answering phones instead of doing the work the calls are about.
The mistake is buying for the quiet months, because that is when the decision usually gets made. What you need is a system that can be turned up rather than one that is comfortable in February.
What overflow actually looks like in the peak
Overflow is a plain idea. When the person who should take a call cannot, the call goes somewhere useful instead of ringing out or landing on whoever happens to be free.
- A queue, so several clients ringing at once are held and told rather than getting a busy tone
- A second and third person the call reaches when the first is already on one
- Routing by what the caller wants, so a lodgement question and a new client enquiry do not sit in the same line
- A message that says how busy you are and when somebody will ring back, which is better information than silence
The reporting matters as much as the routing. Knowing which mornings in the peak actually produce the calls is what lets you put somebody on the phones then instead of guessing.
Client calls that should not interrupt a return
The expensive interruption in a practice is not the call itself, it is what it does to the piece of work somebody was in the middle of.
Most client calls during the peak are status questions. Has it been lodged, did you get my paperwork, when will it be done. They are reasonable questions and they do not need the person doing the work to answer them.
Routing those to somebody who can answer them, or to a mailbox worked through twice a day, protects the hours the practice actually sells. Do not turn the phone off, because that is the other common answer and it costs more than it saves.
Desk phones across a practice
Three tiers of the same range, so the principal, the accountants and the front desk all run one system without paying for the same phone everywhere. Prices exclude GST.
The call record, and the client file
A call that happened on somebody’s mobile leaves no trace in the practice. Nobody else knows it happened, there is nothing against the client, and if that person is on leave the next conversation starts from nothing.
Calls through the practice system leave a record of who rang, when, and how long it took. Where the system connects to the software the practice already uses, that call can be logged against the client without anybody typing it up, and the client record can be on screen as the call arrives.
Whether your own software connects is a real question with a real answer, it varies a great deal between products, and it changes over time. Tell us what you run and we will check it properly rather than guess.
Working from anywhere without handing out a mobile number
Practices moved to working from home faster than most and largely stayed there for part of the week, and the phones mostly did not keep up.
What usually happened is that people gave clients their mobile numbers, because it was the quickest fix available. It works, and it quietly moves the client relationship onto a number the practice does not control and cannot cover when that person leaves.
A system that runs as an app on a laptop or a phone gives the same reachability without that trade. The person works from wherever they are, the client dials the practice number, and the call is on the practice system with a record attached to it.
What we do, and what we are not
VoIP System is an Australian phone systems company, and an independent one. We install these systems, port the numbers onto them and support them once they are running.
We are not accountants and we have no opinion about how you run the practice. What we can do is make sure the peak does not arrive with the phones set up for the quiet season.
We are not one of the manufacturers whose equipment we install, and we are not a partner, reseller or authorised agent of any of them.
Talk to us about your practice
Tell us how many people need a phone, how different the peak is from the rest of the year, and what happens now when several clients ring at once. That is enough for us to say how the peak would look with it in place.
Call 1300 865 879, or send us the details and we will come back to you.
Common questions
- Can we add capacity just for the busy season?
- On a hosted system, yes, and that is one of the better arguments for one. People and handsets can be added and removed as a setting rather than as a hardware purchase, so the practice is not paying all year for what it needs in the peak.
- Can we stop status calls interrupting the person doing the work?
- Yes, and it is usually the single most valuable change. Has it been lodged and did you get my paperwork are reasonable questions that do not need the person preparing the return. They can route to somebody who can answer them, or to a mailbox worked through twice a day.
- Will it work with the software we already use?
- It depends entirely on which product it is, and support varies a great deal and changes over time. Tell us what you run and we will check it properly rather than guess. Where it does connect, calls are logged against the client and the record is on screen as the call arrives.
- Our people work from home part of the week. Does that still work?
- Yes, and without anybody handing out a personal mobile number. The system runs as an app on a laptop or a phone, so the client dials the practice number, the call reaches whoever should take it wherever they are, and the record stays with the practice.
- Can we see how many calls we missed during the peak?
- Yes. Calls received, answered, missed and abandoned are all reported, by time of day. Most practices find the picture in their busiest fortnight is a good deal worse than they assumed, which is a useful thing to know before the next one.