Thanks for the note about Vonage, it’s definitely another great option. The cool thing about starting out lightweight with something like Skype or Vonage is that you can always swap to another system or step up to a more advanced system if needs dictate. That said, however, porting numbers from an outfit like Skype or Vonage to a wholesale provider might be tough, so it’s something to keep in mind if you intend to put a lot of branding effort into your telephone number.

Personally, I prefer using email so I can keep my dependence on a constant phone number as minimal as possible.
–erik

I used Vonage at home about four years ago. Later when I needed a business solution I gave Sykpe a go for a year starting about two years ago. I signed up both for an incoming number and unlimited outgoing. It was very nice in that it was ultra-portable, reliable, the call quality was good, and it was practically free. I found it impossible to completely make the switch, though, as any outgoing calls did not show up on my recipients’ Caller ID as my business or even myself, but always unavailable or something with a bunch of zeroes in it. That appeared way too unprofessional to me. So when it was time to renew, I simply let it lapse.

Last year I ported my business’ land line to Vonage, and have found that I love it every bit as much as I ever did. Especially nice is that now they have voice-to-text transcription for voice mails, which translates pretty reliably, too, and gets sent to your email. And for portability: if you don’t like the USB-phone option, their softphone is a (dumbed-down but perfectly suitable for a freelancer) version of CounterPath’s Bria, which is pretty nice.

I’m definitely with you on Google Apps. I live by their calendar (and reminders-via-SMS)! Gmail is a keeper, too. And Freshbooks is an awesome company. Do you know if they still do tele-seminars like they used to?