How To Decide Between Online Fax and Virtual PBX

If you work from a home office or own a small or medium size business, online fax and virtual PBX (public branch exchange) offer deep savings on your telecommunications costs and enable you to work more efficiently. But which service is best for your business? Your current business setup, the main methods you use to communicate with clients, customers, or remote employees and your future needs of the business will help you decide.

When Internet Fax Is Best

If your business or home office is already setup with a phone system that handles incoming messages, or a receptionist who answers incoming calls, then an online fax service would best meet your needs. With Internet fax, you can save on buying or maintaining a fax machine by switching to an online fax service. All that is needed to send and receive faxes with online fax is Internet access, so you can fax from anywhere at anytime. An online fax service hosts your fax account, provides you with a fax number or arranges to transfer your current fax machine number to their service. Additional features include fax forwarding, fax storage, email fax, fax delivery confirmation, fax to multiple recipients at once, sending multiple attachments with a fax and fax reporting. Most online fax services also feature scalability to accommodate your growing business.

When To Consider Virtual PBX

If your business is mainly computer-based, or if you’re looking to save money by cutting telecommunications costs, then a virtual PBX service is worth considering. Virtual PBX handles all the telecommunications needs of an office or business, uses the high speeds of the Internet to provide its services. Virtual PBX offers a virtual receptionist, phone service, voicemail, various phone features and Internet fax.

Like online fax, you save on equipment costs and maintenance, installation and rental fees of additional phone lines, and staffing. A virtual PBX service provider hosts your service and assigns you local or toll-free phone and fax numbers of your choice. As with traditional phone service, virtual PBX offers similar business features, including phone extensions for different departments, a name directory for callers, call conferencing, music on hold, call logs and call forwarding. Most virtual PBX services also offer the option of online fax from your computer or Web-based account. Although virtual PBX costs more than Internet fax, it provides full-function phone and fax service, gives your business a more professional image, and enables your business to be mobile and accessible 24/7.

Try Before Buying

Both online fax services and virtual PBX providers offer free trials so you can try out the service and decide which is best for your business. Be sure to read the terms of the free trial so you are aware of your obligations in cancelling the service if you decide not to signup with the provider.