A virtual office fax service is an essential part of virtual office services. While many software companies produce fax software for the PC and Mac, and many different hardware solutions are available on the shelf of your local office supply store, a virtual office fax service solves the problems of small business owners face when they either don't want or can't use the normal fax solutions available. A dedicated fax machine requires an additional phone line, or the use of an existing one. Many home based businesses rarely use a fax machine and handle most document transfers by email, and don't want the additional expense of some kind of fax machine and telephone line.Fax hardware, even if using a printer/ scanner/ fax combination solution, takes up precious space.

Fax software is a temporary solution, but ties up a telephone line that can be better put to use making or receiving phone calls. Hardware and software solutions can be incompatible with some business telephone line systems, and they don't travel with the business owner when on the road or in the field. A virtual office fax service handles incoming and outgoing faxes differently by setting up a remote fax server for their clients.

A virtual office fax service is capable of receiving faxes and forwarding them to client's email accounts. Clients may also email documents to the virtual office fax service for single or broadcast distribution. As long as the client has access to his email and can run common software available for most computers and even mobile phones, both access to incoming faxes and the ability to send faxes is guaranteed.