The answering service for accounting firms that books the appointment while the client is still on the line
From the January organizer rush to the October fifteenth extension deadline, your phone rings hardest when you can least afford to pick it up. Ansurra answers every call, books tax appointments and bookkeeping consults on your real calendar, and leaves the tax advice to the CPA.
20 free minutes on your real line · no card · you keep your number
Where the call gets lost.
The moments a accounting firms business misses the phone, and what each one costs.
Every ring in March is a return you are not finishing
Between February and April fifteenth a CPA is billing every hour they can stay awake. Each call is a prospective client asking whether you are taking new returns, a current one asking about their refund, or someone who got an IRS letter and is panicking. Answer, and you lose twenty minutes of a return. Ignore it, and the new client calls the next firm.
The off-season is when the good clients call
The calls that build a practice arrive in June and September: a contractor who just formed an S corp and needs monthly bookkeeping, a dentist unhappy with their current firm, an executor settling an estate. They ring while you are at a client's office or on a long-postponed vacation. A monthly bookkeeping engagement missed in July is a year of fees, gone.
Seasonal front-desk help leaves with the season
Many firms hire a temp receptionist for tax season and let them go in May. The temp learns the client base just as they leave, and from June the phone lands on the office manager who is also running payroll for forty clients. After hours there is nobody at all, and the small-business owner who does his books at ten at night calls then.
What Ansurra does on the call.
The receptionist, in accounting firms terms.
Tax appointments booked, not promised
A caller asking to get their return done is offered only the slots actually open on the preparer's calendar, whether that is a forty-five-minute in-person drop-off or a phone review. The appointment is booked during the call, a confirmation is emailed, and a reminder goes out about a day before. When March is full, Ansurra offers a waitlist spot and lets the caller know when a cancellation frees one.
The right questions for a new engagement
You choose what Ansurra collects, so a new-client call can capture the entity type, whether they file in more than one state, roughly how many transactions a month for bookkeeping, and whether they have prior-year returns to hand. For an IRS notice call, it takes the notice number and the tax year. The summary reaches your inbox before you call back, so the callback is a conversation rather than a questionnaire.
Fees from your schedule, advice from nobody but you
If your price list says a basic individual return starts at two hundred fifty dollars and business returns are quoted after reviewing last year's filing, that is what callers hear, word for word. Ansurra does not estimate or improvise a fee. It gives no tax advice either: a caller asking about a home-office deduction or a crypto sale is told the CPA will answer, and the question is noted.
Current clients recognized, deadlines escalated
A client calling from the number on file is greeted by name, and Ansurra knows they already have a drop-off booked Thursday. Their question about a missing K-1 goes in the summary. A call you flag as urgent, a payroll tax deposit due today or a client holding an IRS levy notice, can be transferred live to your cell with a spoken one-line briefing. Everything else after six becomes a detailed message, emailed to you.
A call, start to finish.
How a call to Hollis & Tran, CPAs — a fictional business — plays out. The receptionist only offers times its calendar shows free and only quotes what the owner's price list says.
Ansurra vs. what you use today.
Voicemail, an answering service, a person at the desk: what each still does better, and what it costs.
Compared with voicemail
Voicemail in April is a black hole. The prospect who leaves a message gets a callback three days later, after they have signed an engagement letter elsewhere. Ansurra answers on the first ring, books the appointment, and sends you a transcript and a summary so you can read the whole call in thirty seconds between returns.
Compared with an answering service
A live answering service will take a message politely, and a good operator can soothe a client who just opened a certified letter. They cannot see your calendar, so every booking is a callback you still owe. They also bill by the minute, which is exactly wrong for a business whose call volume triples for ten weeks a year. Ansurra is a flat monthly fee, and it books live.
Compared with hiring a receptionist
A full-time front desk is a real cost for a firm that is quiet from May to December, and the person you hire in January needs training you have no time to give. Ansurra learns your services from your website in minutes and works the same at nine at night. If you already have an office manager, keep them: Ansurra takes the second line and the after-hours calls.
How it works.
Paste your website
Ansurra reads your services, hours and service area and drafts its own knowledge. Add your price list if you want it quoting.
Forward your number
One dial code at your carrier — every call, or only the ones you miss. You keep the number your customers know.
It answers
From the next ring: it books on your calendar, emails confirmations, transfers emergencies to your cell and sends you every detail.
Accounting Firms, answered.
Can it tell callers whether we are still accepting returns this season?
Yes. The knowledge Ansurra builds from your website is yours to edit, so in mid-March you can note that new individual returns are on extension only, or that you are still taking business clients. Callers hear that directly instead of leaving a voicemail you have to return with bad news. Change it back in May in the same place.
Will it answer tax questions?
No. A caller asking about a deduction, an estimated payment or how to respond to an IRS notice is told the CPA will answer that, and the question goes into the call summary so you have it before you call back. Ansurra handles scheduling, intake details and messages. Tax advice stays with the licensed professional.
Can it take a different intake for bookkeeping clients than for tax clients?
Yes, you define the fields. A bookkeeping prospect can be asked about entity type, monthly transaction volume and how they keep their books today; a tax caller about filing status, prior-year preparer and whether they own a business. Every answer lands in the summary and the dashboard, and can be pushed to your practice-management system through a webhook.
How does it handle the tax-season call volume?
Every call is answered, and nobody hears hold music. Plans are metered by talk minutes rather than by calls, so a firm expecting heavy February-through-April traffic often moves up a plan for those months and back down in May. There are no contracts, and if you stay on your plan the overage is $0.35 a minute ($0.25 on Scale).
Our number is on every engagement letter. Does it change?
No. You keep the number and your carrier forwards it to Ansurra with one dial code, either every call or only when the line is busy or goes unanswered. Setup is about two minutes: paste your website and Ansurra builds its knowledge of your services, hours and location, or start from the accounting template if you have no site.
Which plan fits a two-partner firm?
Starter is $29 a month for 60 talk minutes and suits a firm that mostly wants after-hours and overflow coverage. Growth at $49 gives 180 minutes, enough for most small firms in season. Pro at $99 brings 400 minutes and up to 4 numbers if each partner keeps a line. Yearly billing gives you one month free, the trial is 20 talk minutes with no card, and the first payment has a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Put it on your phones.
Built from your website in about two minutes. 20 free minutes, no card, cancel anytime.
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