Set it up yourself, free

1Get your account and your number

We send you a portal link and a login. Inside, you pick your number: choose the area code you want (604, 778, 236 for the Lower Mainland) and search for one you like. Click it and it is yours in about a minute.

If you already have a business number you want to keep, do not buy a new one yet — skip to step 7 first. Buying a number you will not use costs you a month's fee for nothing.

2Decide how you want to answer calls

Three ways, and this is the only decision in the whole process that is hard to change later. Pick by how you actually work:

• An app on your phone — free, works anywhere with data or wifi, and your business number rings separately from your personal one. Best for a one-person trade.
• A desk phone — a physical VoIP handset, $80–200 you buy once. Best if you sit at a desk and hate answering on a mobile.
• An adapter for the phones you already own — a small box (an ATA, about $60) that lets your existing cordless handsets work on the new line. Best if you have phones you like and do not want to replace them.

You can run more than one at the same time, and both ring. Most people start with the app and add a desk phone later.

3Connect your device

In the portal, create what is called a sub-account — that is the login your phone or app uses, separate from the login you use to manage the account. It gives you three things you will type into your device:

In a softphone app, that screen is usually called Add account or SIP account. On a desk phone it is under Accounts in the web page the phone serves on your network. Pick the server location closest to you — for BC that means the west-coast one. It is the difference between a call that sounds local and one that sounds like a bad video call.

4Point your number at your device

Buying a number and connecting a phone are two separate things, and the step people miss is joining them. In the portal, open your number's settings and set where it routes to: pick the sub-account you just created.

Until you do this, your phone is connected and your number rings nowhere.

5Test it properly, in both directions

1. Call out from the new line to your mobile. Check your new number shows up as the caller ID, not a blank or a wrong number.
2. Call in from your mobile to the new number. Check it rings the right device.
3. Let it ring out without answering, so you see what a customer gets when you cannot pick up.
4. Call 911 — no. Do not test this. But do read the note at the bottom of this page about emergency calls, because it is different from a mobile and it matters.

Do all four before you put the number on a van, a sign or a business card. A number that goes to a dead end is worse than no number.

6Voicemail, and getting it as an email

Set up a voicemail box in the portal, record a greeting, then point the number's no-answer route at it. The part worth doing: turn on email delivery so a voicemail arrives in your inbox as an audio file, and enable transcription if you would rather read it.

Keep the greeting short and say when you will call back. "You've reached [business], leave your name and number and I'll call you back today" beats thirty seconds of hours and options.

7Business hours and after-hours

This is where a phone system starts being worth something. In the portal you can build:

• Time conditions — ring your mobile 7am–6pm, go to voicemail after.
• Ring groups — ring two or three people at once, or one after another.
• A digital receptionist — "press 1 for quotes, 2 for accounts".
• Holiday routing — so the Monday of a long weekend behaves like a Sunday.

All of it is included at no extra charge. It is also the part that takes an afternoon to get right and five minutes to get subtly wrong — a time condition set in the wrong timezone sends every afternoon call to voicemail, and you will not notice until someone tells you.

8Moving your existing number across (porting)

You can bring your current business number with you. Roughly:

1. Get a recent bill from your current provider. The name and service address on it must match exactly what you submit — this is the single most common reason a port is rejected.
2. Submit the port request in the portal with a copy of that bill.
3. Wait. Usually a few business days, sometimes longer if the other provider drags.
4. Do not cancel your old service. Cancelling before the port completes can lose you the number permanently.