The Costs of Printing

Though we have entered the age of the “paperless office” by now, the fact remains that no business can go entirely paperless.  Despite the numerous technological advancements that have made the modern office place more efficient—(and cleared away all those filing cabinets)—there still is a large demand for printed material.  The costs of printing can often be overlooked by small businesses and small business owners.  Paper, toner, maintenance and repairs–plus the most valuable asset of all: your time.

One way to mitigate these high costs is to monitor the use of your office printers.  Limit unnecessary and wasteful printing by restricting access to only authorized users.  Promote other methods of information distribution–scanning to either files or email.  Another way business owners can efficiently limit these costs is by managing print settings from a variety of service points.  Work stations, printers, PCs and document processors all have access points from which to alter these print settings.  For standard, everyday documents (anything besides color and professional documents), these settings can be managed in order to print in more efficient and cost effective ways.  The digital age provides us with a variety of ways to save both time and money through simple solutions.  But it is important not to forget the human side—communicating efficiently with your employees about issues such as these goes a long way towards ensuring the protocols you have set in place are providing optimal return.