Controlling Your Printing Output: Curbing the Abuse of Small Office Printers

Even the most valuable team members can become liabilities when it comes to printing documents. If your printing costs are getting out of control, here are a few strategies for putting a stop to unnecessary printing. Visual Edge IT offers small office printers and copiers for sale and lease, helping Southern California businesses access the best Xerox equipment for their needs and goals.

Did you know that office workers print an average of 34 pages per day each? Furthermore, did you know that approximately two-thirds of those printed pages were created in error, and simply thrown out? Not only is this wasteful beyond belief — both for your bottom line and for the environment — this can put your organization’s security at risk. Documents carelessly thrown into the garbage or recycling bin might disclose sensitive or proprietary information about your business or your clients and customers.

The reason employees print documents with abandon is simple — it’s not their money. Moreover, they likely don’t have the resources and tools they need to operate more efficiently. Here are a few strategies that might help you manage your team’s printing output more effectively.

Install Printer Management Software

Don’t let just anyone print documents on your dime — one of the best things about technological printer innovations is the creation of printer management software. In the olden days, there weren’t any tools for limiting hysterical printing, and the only way to stop it would be to run out of paper and ink. Today, you can install tools that allow you to calculate the costs of printing across departments and for individual processes. This monitoring tool will help you establish printing quotas and enforce printer usage rules.

Require Printing Authentication

One of the reasons employees print an average of 34 pages a day, despite much of the world going paperless, is because pages simply vanish. This occurs when an employee prints a document on a printer in a different room and doesn’t retrieve it immediately, so the document gets lost and has to be printed again. Secure release printing helps to ensure all printing is necessary and that the documents are retrieved and secured immediately. It requires the recipient to authenticate the printing job at the unit itself.

Don’t Set Your Printer to Color

Color printing should only be a deliberate choice — it should never be a default setting. Most documents only require black ink, so if you’re noticing that you’re going through quite a bit of color cartridges, it’s probably because you’ve been printing literally everything in color without noticing. Because the cost of color printing is roughly three times that of black-and-white printing, this alone might drive your printing costs way down!

Visual Edge IT specializes in small office printers and copiers designed to deliver an abundance of features in a small package. To learn more about the equipment we sell and lease, please visit our product page.

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