Saving money on office tools is a great way to free up some room on your business spending. The question is: what can you afford to leave out? Instead of stressing over whether your publishing department needs that new program or your marketing department needs that new software, start saving on the office equipment that really takes up your budget.

The one area where you probably spend the most money is telecommunications. Having a complex telecomm setup can easily cost you a lot of money – if you haven’t already updated to the latest telecom equipment that is.

By updating to the latest telecom equipment like business phone systems, you will be combining around 8 tools into one system. This will save you money on equipment cost, save room in your office space and improve work productivity.

Business phone systems technology has improved tremendously over the past two decades. It wasn’t long ago when phones could only connect two people on a landline. Then, additional features such as voicemail and caller id were added – but at a higher cost because they were separate attachments.

Now, you can save money and space at your desk by buying a single telephone system that combines everything you need. The latest business telephone systems include these four features that will not only help your business run better but are also cost effective:

Automatic call forwarding

One obstacle in any business is being able to travel between different locations and remain accessible. Automatic call forward solves that problem; this feature routes incoming calls to wherever you are, whether it’s home or work.

This feature will save you from having to burden your clients with a list of different numbers to reach you; with automatic call forwarding, they will only need to use a single number. This can ultimately raise employee productivity and improve business relationships.

Call convergence

Like call forwarding, call convergence is a feature on your phone system that will enable you to be more accessible to your coworkers and (most importantly) your clients. This feature enables your phone system to handle not only phone calls but also voice mail, email, instant messaging, video conference and more.

These tools and features used to require additional hookups and wiring (at an additional cost); however, they no longer require it. Instead, all you need is a single telephone system.

Auto attendant

The economy may be improving but perhaps your business isn’t yet at the stage when you can hire additional employees, such as a receptionist to answer phone calls. That’s when an auto attendant feature can be a huge help. An auto attendant is a recorded message that answers your phones and instructs callers on how to reach the right person.

This feature can save you money on the money you could have lost from callers getting frustrated and hanging up when trying to reach your company. In addition, it also prevents your business from hiring a new employee when you know you really can’t afford one.

Conference Calling

It used to be that you had to gather in a room to be able to communicate with a number of business professionals, which is time consuming and highly inconvenient. As a result, conference calling is a very popular feature among business professionals.

Conference calling lets business professionals be more flexible with their meeting schedules. Depending on what type of system you purchase, you can add a number of business professionals to listen in from a single system – no additional equipment required.

The latest business phone system technology can save your business money in addition to increasing employee accessibility, flexibility and productivity. If you consider how much you spend on attachments for each of your old systems, you’ll find that the attachment costs are more expensive than buying a new telephone system that includes these features.

The features mentioned and additional features such as music-on-hold, dialing options, and computer telephone integration (CTI) can help you take your business to the next level.

Sylvia Rosen is a web content writer with a background in newspaper journalism. She enjoys connecting with industry professionals to write articles on the latest small business trends, unified communications and social media.