First steps to building your phone system

By now you should have already signed up for a Birchills Phone account and logged into Manager for the first time. If not, you’ll need to send an email to Support@Birchills.net and we can begin the sign up process.

Once logged in, you should see something like this:

Step 1: Add a phone number

We’ll need to add a phone number for people outside your business to call. To do this, choose ‘Incoming Numbers’ from the main menu, followed by 'Add Incoming Number'.

Select the required area code (you may also search by area/prefix) and choose an available number from the list.

Done that? Great! Now you have a number, it's time to set a destination so we know where to direct your calls.

Step 3 - Add a destination

Now you have a number for your business, you’ll need to set a destination for incoming calls. There are a number of destination types to choose from, including a single person or a group of people, and the destination can even vary depending on the time of day. For now though, to keep things simple, we’ll send all calls to a single person.

To do this, select/expand the number you just added and click 'Not Set'. A list of destinations will appear, which currently will be empty (unless you’ve added one previously).

Click ‘Create destination’ to create your first extension. Eventually, you’ll want to add an extension for each member of your team, but right now we'll start with your own

Choose 'Phone Extension' from the list - you’ll then be offered the choice of two types of extension. If you’d just like to forward calls to an external number such as your mobile, choose ‘Virtual Extension’. If you’d like to connect an app or VoIP handset for making/receiving calls directly over the internet, choose ‘Regular Extension’.

Important: Calls which are forwarded to a phone number outside of our network are subject to the usual outgoing call charges.

You’ll need to give your extension a 3-digit internal number, and a name.

Click ‘Next’ then ‘Confirm’ to complete your order and finally, click ‘Save’ to assign the new destination to the number.

Congratulations - you are ready to start using your new business phone system!

Next steps

If you added a regular extension above, you’ll also need to connect your device(s). We support just about any device, from dedicated VoIP handsets to tablets or smartphones, on any platform. The easiest way to get started is to download and install one of the recommended softphone apps.

You’ll find more information about virtual vs. regular extensions and the features available for each in our phone extensions guide.

Finally, if you have any questions or need help with anything, we’re here to help! Chat to a member of the support team directly from within the portal, or give us a call during office hours on 01922 21 33 33.

We’re delighted to have you on board!