A business telephone system is way of making your phone lines more efficient. They allow you to share one line amongst multiple users, integrate with computers and mobile phones and even control your incoming and outgoing calls to make using your phone more efficient, using voicemail, call transferring, etc.

Using business telephone systems for your company can not only make your communication more efficient, but can also save you money, as you can utilise a VoIP phone, which means you can make normal phonecalls through the internet, instead of using more traditional lines (such as analogue or ISDN). This kind of phone line is usually much cheaper than the more traditional, widely used alternatives.

Before you can utilise this kind of system in your own office, you’ll need to figure out which system you’ll need, as there are several key options. You’ll need to decide what kind of line you’ll want to use, whether you’re likely to scale it up in the future, how many handsets you’ll need, handset capabilities, etc.

Generally speaking, if you’re running a business you’ll probably want to go for ISDN or VoIP lines, as these are not only cheaper, but are far better than the analogue lines used by most people. It’s difficult to advise someone on which of these two lines to pick however, as it will depend what your business is and how much data or high a volume of calls you plan to take.

You’ll also need to figure out how many lines you’ll need. For the majority of offices, 3 people to 1 line is more than sufficient; if you run a larger business on the other hand, and you have a much busier office, you might want to consider bringing down the number of people per line.

One plus side to using business telephone systems is that even if you move offices, you’ll be able to keep your number. You can very easily move the existing phone number to a brand new system in a new office, or just ‘port’ the numbers to a different line. There isn’t a connection between your phone number and the line you’re using, making it extremely easy to move as much as you like, without having to lose your number.