Between printing supplies, power, maintenance, and the occasional unexpected repair, printing expenses can become a significant part of your business’s budget. However, the complexity of these costs can be a blessing in disguise, as there are many opportunities for small tweaks that add up to major savings.
Here are some strategies to help you reduce the costs of printing that you may not have thought of yet.
Evaluate your printing needs
Understanding your company’s printing requirements and resource usage is crucial for making impactful changes. Conduct a comprehensive audit of your current printing practices to identify areas for reducing waste and costs. Ask yourself these questions:
- Is anyone or any team using more printing resources than they should?
- What methods do you have in place, if any, to track printing jobs and resource expenditures?
- Which documents actually need to be printed, and which ones can go without printing?
- Could a digital alternative serve just as well for a frequent print job?
- Are any of your printing devices outdated? Do any of them demand frequent repairs and maintenance?
Centralize and consolidate your printers
Centralizing printing operations to a few strategically placed printers saves on energy and maintenance costs. Use a print server to ensure everyone in the organization can easily connect to and print from a central printer, regardless of location. Utilize multifunction printers (MFPs) to consolidate scanners, copiers, printers, and fax machines into one device, reducing maintenance spending, conserving electricity, and saving space.
Reduce energy, paper, and ink consumption
This one is obvious, but there are many ways you can go about this that you may have overlooked. Here’s a list of quick tips to cut consumption of costly printing supplies:
- Use efficient printing settings such as grayscale unless color is essential. Additionally, select Draft Mode or other lower-quality options, and opt for double-sided printing. Choose ink-efficient fonts like Century Gothic or Eco fonts. Finally, adjust the margins and font size to maximize page usage.
- Purchase cost-effective print supplies such as refillable ink and toner cartridges from compatible third-party providers. For non-customer-facing print jobs, use lower-quality or recycled paper.
- Prevent waste by purchasing energy-efficient printers certified to consume less electricity (e.g., ENERGY STAR) and using power conservation modes so printers turn off automatically when not in use. In addition, prevent wasted paper from accidental print jobs by implementing secure release policies that require employees to be present at the printer before the print job finishes.
Alone, these strategies may have limited impact, but together, they can lead to significant savings over time.
Regularly maintain your equipment, or consider Printing-as-a-Service (PaaS)
Regularly scheduled printer maintenance and cleaning not only reduces the amount of costly repairs but also prevents downtime from occurring in the first place.
If you lack the time or expertise for consistent maintenance, consider PaaS. With this model, you pay a monthly fee to receive a printer, regular deliveries of printing supplies, and scheduled maintenance by technicians, as specified in your service level agreement. Furthermore, with PaaS, there’s no high initial expenditure, and your budget is safe from cost spikes when something breaks down.
Cut your printing costs with a managed print services provider
If you’re already considering PaaS, you may want to take the next step: outsourcing your printing needs to a professional managed print services provider. They can handle your devices, printing software, supplies provisioning, and overall printing strategy. Their expertise can optimize your printing operations and uncover additional ways to minimize consumption.
If your business is in the LA or Orange County areas, contact Complete Document Solutions. We’re a document and printing IT specialist with over 30 years of experience in the industry.
We’ll help you cut your printing costs in the ways detailed above, as well as implement document digitization solutions that eliminate the need to print in the first place.
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