VoIP for accountants and payroll consultants

A firm's phone before a deadline

Anyone who works in an accountancy or payroll firm knows the calendar of phone calls well. In the days before tax payment deadlines (in Italy, the 16th of the month, when F24 payments fall due), clients call to find out how much they have to pay. During tax return season calls multiply. For payroll consultants the peak comes around the end of the month, with payslips, new hires and leavers to report on time.

The problem is not the average number of calls, but their concentration: ten clients calling in the same half hour, while two colleagues are already on the phone and the partner is with a client. At those moments a traditional line gives a busy tone, and the client calls back, gets annoyed or sends three emails.

A well-configured VoIP system does three things: it rings several people at once, it never leaves the client without an answer (at least a voicemail or a request taken down) and it leaves a trace of every call, so nobody is left without a reply. For the general idea see the page on VoIP for professional firms; here we go into the detail of an accountancy firm.

Ringing several colleagues: all together or one after the other

The core of the routing is the «Ring SIP accounts» module, which rings up to 20 accounts with two strategies.

For a firm of six people, on deadline days simultaneous ringing is almost always the right choice: whoever is free answers, and nobody has to pass the call on. «Ring time» goes from 5 to 300 seconds, starting at 30 seconds; so as not to keep the client waiting too long before the next step, 20-25 seconds is a good compromise.

A set-up that works well has two levels: first the two reception staff ring, then, if neither answers, all the colleagues. You get this with two «Ring SIP accounts» steps one after the other. If in the meantime the caller has already been picked up by an earlier step (for example by the AI secretary), they hear hold music instead of the ringing tone. All the details are in the guide on simultaneous or sequential ringing.

When nobody can answer: voicemail or AI secretary

On peak days, the step after the ringing decides whether the client feels looked after or abandoned. There are two options, and they can be combined.

Voicemail

«Voicemail» records the message and sends it by email; you also find it on the portal's Voicemail page. You write the greeting yourself (up to 500 characters, read by a synthetic voice) or record it and attach it as a WAV file. It is included in the price, and it is always the last step of the flow. A useful message before a deadline also says what to do in the meantime:

Verdi Accountants. We are all on the phone at the moment.
Please leave your name, number and client code if you know it.
If you are calling about the amount due, it is also in the email we sent you.

How to set it up properly, with the length of the message and the right address, is explained in the guide on VoIP voicemail.

The AI secretary

The «AI secretary» answers with an artificial voice, follows the instructions you write in the «What it must ask or say» field and collects the caller's name, contact details, reason and urgency. You receive a notice with a summary, the transcribed conversation and the «Accept» and «Refuse» buttons: if you accept, the call carries on, for example to the colleague who looks after that client.

For an accountancy firm it works well as a filter: it separates someone with an urgent problem (a tax authority notice about to expire) from someone asking for information that can wait. The instructions can ask for the company name and the type of request, without going into tax details. Remember that the AI secretary can misunderstand or make mistakes: read the card before deciding. The full guide is the one on the AI phone secretary.

How many outbound calls at once: channels

Before a deadline the firm does not only receive calls: it calls back. Each SIP account has a «Simultaneous outbound calls» setting, from 1 to 1000 channels, and each extra channel costs €0.50 a month, pro rata by day.

If each colleague has their own account, nothing else is usually needed. If instead the firm has a PBX connected through a single account, the number of channels decides how many people can call out at the same time: with six colleagues calling clients back, you need enough channels for everyone. The limit applies only to outbound calls: inbound calls do not use it up.

Two settings protect the firm from surprises: the «Daily spending limit», which resets at midnight Rome time, and «Block calls costing more than (per minute)». On an account used only to call clients in your own country you can also restrict destinations with «Only the selected destinations».

Several offices, one firm

Many accountancy firms have two or three offices, often the result of mergers. With VoIP the offices become a single telephone organisation.

• One number per office: each office keeps its local area code, with its own routing and its own extensions. Clients keep calling the number they know.
• Short extensions between offices: calls between accounts of the same customer using extensions of 2 to 6 digits are free, even if the offices are in different cities.
• Back-up between offices: if nobody answers in Brescia, a second «Ring SIP accounts» step can ring the extensions in Bergamo.
• Calling out with the right number: each office calls clients with its own number, by setting the caller ID on the accounts. How to do it is explained in the guide on caller ID.

The same applies to people working from home on peak days: the colleague uses the webphone in the browser or the app on the mobile, with the same account as in the office. More examples are on the page on VoIP for multiple sites and remote teams.

Connecting the phone to your practice software with a webhook

Many firms work with practice management software or a CRM where they log client requests. The routing's «Notify a webhook» module sends, for every inbound call, a POST request in JSON format to an https address you choose. The message contains these fields:

{
  "event": "inboundCall",
  "did": "+390301234567",
  "caller": "+393452180937",
  "uniqueId": "1760601123.4521",
  "startedAt": "2026-10-16T08:12:03Z"
}

The values above are only an example. With the caller field the software can look up the client by number and open their record on the colleague's screen, or log the call in the history. With did you know which of the firm's numbers it arrived on, useful if you have one number per office or a number dedicated to payroll.

The webhook does not stop the call: it fires and the call carries on to the next step, usually «Ring SIP accounts». In the portal there is a «Test» button to check that the address responds before you put it into production. If someone at the firm develops software, the developer API page describes what else can be connected; all the routing modules are described in the guide on call routing modules.

Which numbers to choose

For an accountancy firm the choice is almost always a geographic number in the city where it operates: clients are local and the city's area code builds trust. With virtual numbers in 232 Italian cities and more than 90 countries you can have one for each office.

It is also worth considering a second, dedicated number for a specific service, for example payroll: its own routing, with the payroll staff, and a webhook that tells the software it is that type of request. If the firm already has a long-standing number with another provider, you can have the platform manage it as an «external number», for €1.00 a month, without porting.

To activate an Italian geographic number you need the documents the provider requires: for a company, the legal representative's identity document, a registered office in the district and a company registry extract (the Italian «visura camerale»). Verification costs €5.00 one-off and the outcome usually arrives in 1-3 working days.

What it costs: an example with two offices

Take a firm with two offices and eight people, one geographic number per office paid annually. Here are the items from the rates, excluding VAT.

Paid annually, the two numbers cost about €18.30 a month in total. The rest depends on how much the firm calls out, at per-second rates. Credit is prepaid and topped up by card, PayPal or bank transfer; an alert by email and WhatsApp tells you when it is running low, so you are not left without a line on deadline day.

If you are thinking of recording calls, for example those where a client confirms an engagement, first read the guide on the rules for recording calls: the confidentiality of tax data calls for the same caution as a law firm. For an example in a different sector, see how a car repair shop organises itself.

Frequently asked questions