Virtual offices offer a great alternative to any business that doesn’t want to use their home or commercial space as an office. You’ll be provided with a virtual address to use for all of your business’ address needs such as the registered office and access to features such as mail scanning and forwarding. We’ve explored what a virtual office allows you to do and how much it may cost to help you understand whether you should get a virtual address for your business.
What is a virtual office?
Virtual offices will vary per provider, but as a general rule, they’re used in place of a commercial office location. Whether you can visit your virtual office, the services available, and how much you pay will depend on the type of virtual office you purchase. When researching virtual offices, there are two distinct differences between what’s available.
Virtual office with physical space
Some virtual office providers operate from a commercial office building, and instead of renting office space in the traditional way, they’ll offer it as a virtual office package. These virtual offices can be visited in person and used for business purposes such as meetings, interviews and your daily work. The type of plan you purchase will determine which services and what room is available to you, and it’s intended for UK businesses that need a physical office but aren’t ready or don’t need a traditional office space.
Fully remote virtual offices
On the other hand, fully remote virtual offices are based in locations that you won’t visit or work from, and instead, you’ll access the services they offer remotely. These types of virtual offices are intended for businesses that do not need a physical location to work from, but would still like access to the features and services available through a virtual office service.
Virtual office services: What can you do?
To understand whether a virtual office is right for you, it’s important that you’re aware of the different services available. You may find that some services are or aren’t available depending on whether you choose a physical or remote virtual office. We exclusively offer remote virtual offices, so we’ve focused on the services available to anyone who purchases a plan of that type.
Please also note that anyone with a UK Postbox virtual office will have access to our online mail management platform. Available on desktop PC or as a mobile and tablet app, you can manage everything to do with your account and virtual office from this system. Here are the various services and features available to you:
Reverse hybrid mail
Receive letters and parcels to your virtual office without ever being there. When you’re allocated a virtual office address, you should update your delivery information with suppliers, clients, government agencies and anyone else who contacts you via post. We can receive post on your behalf and store it in our secure mailroom.
Hybrid mail
Send letters from your desktop PC and tablet or mobile devices. Just upload a PDF document and we’ll print and post it on your behalf. Send any mail correspondence such as legal documents, bills, announcements, marketing material, invoices or responses to letters you’ve received.
Mail scanning
When a letter or parcel is delivered to your virtual office address, an envelope scan or photo of your parcel will be taken and uploaded to your account. If you then need to read your letter, you can ask us to open it and scan the contents for you to view online.
Mail forwarding
If you receive a letter or parcel and need it sent to another location, we can forward it to any address across the globe. Whether it’s a legal document that needs signing or your business has received a parcel intended for someone in your team, decide on a case by case basis what happens to your mail items. Learn more about our international parcel forwarding service.
Mail storage
You can store your mail physically, digitally or both. We’ll store all mail items free for 30 days at our secure sorting facility, and you can pay for additional storage past this date. You can also save and organise digital versions of your mail using our platform and your own cloud storage systems. If there’s anything you don’t need to be stored physically, we can safely dispose of it for you.
Automations & workflows
Set up customised workflows to improve how your business processes mail. Automatically share digital copies and alert individuals or entire departments when a mail item needs their attention via email or push notifications. This will get your business mail to the relevant person instantly, reducing the time required to manage and respond to post.
Integrations
If your business uses cloud systems such as Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Evernote or Dropbox, you can integrate your UK Postbox account and benefit from additional functionality. When you receive mail, you can have the digital copy automatically organised in your storage systems, ready to view and access by your team.
Register your company in the UK
Every virtual office account will include a unique virtual address. This address can be used for a variety of business purposes, such as correspondence, business trading, registered office and directors’ service address. You’ll need to provide this information when registering your company in the UK or changing your registered office address, and your virtual office address is suitable to use for all of these purposes.
How much does a virtual office cost?
The price of a virtual office depends on the type of plan you select and how often you use the available services. All UK Postbox virtual office accounts are made up of two parts which determine the price; a mail plan and a virtual address.
Virtual address - Choose between 5 London locations or our Dorset street address. You’ll receive a unique variation of this address to use for all business address needs.
Mail plan - Your mail plan determines what’s included in your plan and your mail scanning limits. Plans range from a pay-as-you-go option where you only pay for the mail you receive to plans that allow for up to 5000 scans per month. Larger plans are available on request.
Any services that aren’t included in your monthly plan will be charged on a case-by-case basis, as per our pricing guide. Account plans are flexible, and it’s easy to upgrade or downgrade your plan at any time. If you’re ready to select your account options and find out how much a virtual office will cost you, use the button below to visit our plans page.
