What does a virtual receptionist for accountants take off your desk?
The calls that break your concentration halfway through a set of accounts. A virtual receptionist for accountants answers your practice's line in its name, takes new enquiries down properly, books consultations into your diary on the Growth plan and above, and passes every question about a client's own affairs to you in writing. You get fewer interruptions and better notes.
What it does not do is give tax advice, or talk about a client's position with anybody. Those conversations stay yours. The job on our side is to make sure you know who rang, what they need, and how urgent it is, so you can choose when to deal with it rather than having the phone choose for you.
Why does the phone get busier as 31 January gets closer?
Because the tax year sets the rhythm. For the 2025 to 2026 tax year, HMRC's deadline for online Self Assessment returns, and for paying the tax owed, is 11:59pm on 31 January 2027. Paper returns are due by 31 October 2026. Every client who has left it late realises it in the same few weeks, and the ones who ring all want an answer that day.
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax adds a new layer. It began on 6 April 2026 for sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000, and gov.uk sets the threshold at £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028. Each step brings in people meeting the rules for the first time, and new rules mean new questions: am I in, what do I have to send, and when.
None of that fits neatly around your own deadlines. The weeks your clients most want to talk are the weeks you have least time to answer, which is exactly when a second pair of hands on the phone earns its place.
Which calls should reach you, and which should wait?
You decide at setup, and the rules can be as fine as you like. A typical split for a small practice might look like this:
- New enquiries. Sole trader, partnership, limited company or landlord. What they need: accounts, returns, payroll, bookkeeping, or help with a letter. Whether they have an accountant now, and whether there is a deadline or penalty already in play. On Growth and Premium these questions qualify the enquiry before it reaches you, so a caller you would never take on is told politely during the call.
- Existing clients. Chasing a return, asking if you have their paperwork, wanting to arrange a meeting. Written up in full and sent to you, because only you know the answer.
- Anything with a date attached. A client who has received a penalty notice or a letter with a response date can be flagged as urgent, so it is at the top of your list rather than buried in it.
- Everybody else. Software vendors, sales calls and cold offers are logged and left for you to ignore.
Where a call genuinely should interrupt you, it can be put straight through. Call transfers start at Growth.
How are questions about a client's tax handled?
Carefully, and always the same way. A caller who asks whether they can claim for something, how much they will owe, or whether their return has gone in is told that the question will go to you, and when they can expect to hear back. Their words are written down as they said them, so you are answering the actual question rather than a summary of it.
Nothing about a client's affairs is discussed on the call, and nobody on our side offers a view on tax. That is not caution for its own sake. A friendly guess from somebody answering your phone is still a guess made in your practice's name.
Can consultations with new clients go straight into your diary?
From Growth upwards, yes. The enquiry is qualified, the caller picks a time that suits them from the slots you have made available, and the appointment is in your calendar before they put the phone down. On Light and Essential the request is taken in full and sent to you to confirm.
The call is also a good moment to set expectations. HMRC's guidance on the money laundering rules says the businesses they cover, which include the accountancy sector, must identify their customers and check they are who they say they are, and stop dealing with them if in doubt. If you ask new clients for identification at the first meeting, the call can tell them what to bring, so the meeting does not end with a second one to finish the checks.
What about the evenings and weekends before a deadline?
That is when clients with a day job finally sit down with their paperwork, and when they discover what is missing. Out-of-hours options come with Growth and Premium, so a person can still answer after your office has closed, take the details and, where you want it, book the callback. Light and Essential cover business hours only.
Which plan fits an accounting practice?
The price of each plan is set by how many calls a month it includes. At its core, every one answers the same way: your common questions dealt with from your own notes, every caller's message sent to you by text and email, and a log kept of every call. Plans start at £59 a month.
For a practice, the features that matter are qualifying new enquiries and booking consultations, and both start at Growth, at £249 a month for 100 calls. Premium, at £399 for 150 calls, goes further: calls made out to your clients on your behalf, follow-ups, CRM updates, and a couple of hours of admin each month. Every plan charges per call once its allowance is used, which matters in a practice whose January looks nothing like its July, so it is worth thinking about your busiest month rather than your average one.
Setup is a one-off fee, from £49.50 at the moment instead of £99. It covers the scripts, your answers to the common questions and the rules for what counts as urgent. The plans sit side by side on plans and pricing. For the mechanics of the answering, from the greeting to the message you receive, read about our telephone answering service.
How do you start before the January rush?
Ideally in the autumn, while there is time to get the answers right. The free trial runs for seven days with no card needed, and your number stays exactly as it is. A quiet week now is a good week to see how calls are handled; a week in January is not the time to be writing a script.
Questions first? Call 01709 222834, or send a message and we will ring you. The other businesses we answer for are on who we help.