What is the WhatsApp Business Platform?

What it is

There are two WhatsApp products for businesses. The WhatsApp Business app is a free phone app for one person. The Business Platform (often called the API) connects a company's systems so messages can be sent, received, logged and routed to staff. It requires verification of the business with Meta, a dedicated phone number, and templates, approved in advance, for any message the business sends outside the 24-hour window after a client's last message.

Messages are encrypted between the client's phone and the business's platform endpoint; the business and the platform provider it uses can read them, as they must to handle them.

Why it matters for a tax firm

For firms whose clients live on WhatsApp, the platform is what makes it a proper channel: documents land in the client file, several staff can answer, and there is a log. Templates and the 24-hour rule shape how reminders are written.

How XyloDocs handles it

XyloDocs connects a firm's existing WhatsApp number to the Business Platform and migrates the history, so clients keep texting the number they know while documents and messages are filed and translated.