4 Ways a Fax Machine Eats Your Profits

The year is 2013 and we, as humans, continually strive to make things smaller, faster, and more efficient. Gone are the days of the rotary phone and the computer processing unit that needed a 12-by-12 room to use. Now we can call our friends halfway around the world using nothing but our voice via recognition software. So why are you still using a fax machine?

A fax machine is completely inefficient, and eats away at profits you make every day. Here are four ways in which it does.

Phone Line
Isn't it irritating that your fax machine requires its own dedicated phone line? If it doesn't, and your customers are happening to call at the same time, they get nothing but a busy signal. That must make them feel good. "I tried calling 3 times today but always got a busy signal". What if its vice versa? Meaning you pick up the phone thinking its a customer and get that annoying fax tone in your ear. With a Fax Server you never have that problem. It uses your computer and its Internet connection to send and receive faxes without disrupting anything else you're doing.

Paper
Every fax machine takes paper, and paper cost money. While it's not all that expensive, do the math it adds up. Regardless, if you're not using paper for a fax machine, you're not spending as much money on it. Paperless is the way to go in any form. Some companies have saved 25% on their operation cost by going paperless. If you would like to learn more about paperless solutions, call Computerware at (703) 821-8200.

Ink & Toner
Just like paper, a fax machine requires toner to operate. The difference is that toner is expensive. Lets just say on the low side that you go through a cartridge per month. The average cost of a toner cartridge is around $100 if you use color. That's $1,200 per year per fax machine that you save, justin toner. A study by the NYT, in 2008, found that a gallon bottle of Black HP ink cost $4,294. That was 5 years ago.

Operation and Maintenance
It takes the average user eight minutes to send a fax. That includes loading the document, dialing the number, waiting to send the fax, and receiving the confirmation page. This amount of time increases if there's a paper jam, paper needs to be loaded, or if toner needs to be loaded. What if the machine needs to be serviced, or worse, needs replacement? It's costly.

The fact is, the use of fax machines could easily cost your business $25,000 a year between your employees waiting around to use it (downtime), the cost of paper and toner, plus the cost of the dedicated phone line(s). To learn more give us a call at (703) 821-8200 and start saving money today with an affordable Fax Server solution!