Many businesses look at printing as a commodity and not look at how printing can actually be impacting their business. Without proper management your business may be wasting thousands of dollars each year. When these costs stack up it is time for a change.
Tip 1: Don’t Print!!
This may sound stupid, but really do you need to print out an email?
I don’t necessarily mean stop printing all together but to often people print out stuff that is not needed. If the information is on the screen you can just read it off there, or save it for later. If there is a webpage that you need to read you can snip it up in evernote for later.
Bills that are received via email can be saved into a network folder or a document management system. These can be stored by date or company. This also has an added bonus of making the files easier to find even months later on.
You can also keep folders to keep your emails in order instead of printed when they need an action. I keep everything that needs some sort of work in the inbox then have an archive folder for emails that are do not need attention or not needed. I also take advantage of the new clutter feature in Outlook to sort all of the marketing emails that I receive into another folder then I can look at them in my own time.
Remember to ask yourself “Do I really need this printed?” before you next hit the print button.
Tip 2: Use Grayscale/Black and White default print settings
When you print in colour it uses more ink/toner then when you print in black and white. If you have a colour printer then you can set your printer to print in black and white by default then when you want to print in colour you can change it.
Even if you are printing a page with just black text on the page, if the printer is set to print in colour it will use your colour cartridges to make black. This is because the printer thinks you want the deepest black that it can make so it uses the colour to make the black deeper, so if you are printing text it is just wasting extra toner or ink.
Tip 3: Use a Managed Print Service
This isn’t exactly something you can implement on your own, but it definitely will help reduce costs. Managed print services allow you to track usage, reduce equipment inefficiencies, automate toner delivery and only pay for what you actually use.
Tip 4: Print in Duplex
I don’t think there is any printer on the market now that cannot print in duplex(on both sides of the page), enable duplex printing and you can literally halve your paper usage.
All you have to do is change your default print settings to “two-sided” or “print on both sides” in your browser or printer defaults and you’re ready to go. With the click of a button you’ve effectively slashed your paper utilisation in half.
Tip 5: Implement a Digital Document Management System
By moving from paper based files to digital files, you no longer need to print them which in turn reduces your print costs. On top of reducing print costs, archiving files digitally also has a lot of other advantages including increased security, productivity and mobility.
Bonus Tip: Talk to an expert
Getting someone external to your organisation to take a look at your current print and document storage/management process can often lead to insights that you may not have thought of.
