In a survey conducted by Oki Systems UK, it was found that 66% of SMEs don’t know how much they spend on printing. The remaining 44% who do know their printing overheads admitted to spending over £10,000 a year, with nearly half of them printing more than a standard size box of paper per week. 39% say that their company is overspending because of unnecessary printing by employees.
So what can be done to better manage document workflow and reduce printing costs for businesses? Keep reading to find out.
Implement a Managed Print Service
Did you know your business could save up to 30% off its printing costs when an effective managed print system is in place?
A managed print service (MPS) takes care of all your business’ print hardware, software and services including consumables under one easy-to-manage contract, helping to eliminate unnecessary administration which in turn saves time, increases productivity and keeps costs down.
With a managed print service, you automatically gain greater visibility of the printer usage across your business, helping both you and us to identify opportunities where your print infrastructure could be optimised. In turn, this helps you to gain greater control over your print-related expenditure.
Combining award-winning hardware, innovative software features and unbeatable service levels, designed specifically to meet your business needs, DMS MPS puts you back in control of everything from cost to wastage.
We design an advanced printing infrastructure that provides the printing volume capacity and printer availability your organisation requires, complemented by streamlined workflow solutions. Automated service and toner alerts also ensure you can focus on your day-to-day business. safe in the knowledge that DMS is taking care of your print requirements.
Save to PDF Instead of Printing
Unless you absolutely need a hard copy of a document, you should always opt for the digital pdf version. If you need to share this document with others, make sure to send it via email or share it on a cloud based storage solution such as Google Drive. Not only does this save on paper, ink and energy, it also makes documents much easier to access and edit.
Print in Black and White Where Possible
Colour ink cartridges cost significantly more than black and white ink cartridges. Whilst it might not seem like a huge difference at the time, pennies soon add up to pounds and printing in colour can actually cost up to eight times more than printing in black and white.
Use Double Sided Printing
Instead of printing each page to a different piece of paper, you can use double sided printing to cut your paper consumption by 50%. This is especially important when printing multiple long booklets with lots of pages.
Reduce Your Margin Sizes
When producing documents in word processing software such as Microsoft Word or Pages, you can reduce the size of your margin from 1.25 inches to 0.75 inches, allowing more content to fit onto one page. In fact, even by implementing small changes like this, you can reduce your paper usage by 4.75%!
Use Ink-Friendly Fonts
Something few of us have ever thought about it how much ink different fonts use, however, according to research, fonts including Times New Roman, Century Gothic and Ecofont are some of the most economical fonts that use less ink, whilst fonts such as Arial actually use more. According to CNET.com, you can save up to 31% in printing costs by using Century Gothic instead of Arial.
Preview Before Printing
Large amounts of waste come from staff making mistakes on documents and only realising after printing. This is why it’s important to take a few seconds to review your document for errors and double check the formatting in Print Preview so you can be sure you’re getting it right the first time.
Only Print What You Need
Plenty of us are guilty of printing out entire documents when all we really need is one page, however, over time this can end up costing your business significantly more in printing costs. When the Print window pops up, make sure to print only the selected page or range of pages you need.
Digitally Scan Instead of Copying
Instead of photocopying and printing a document to share with others, it’s more efficient and less wasteful to digitally scan it and email it directly from a multi-function printer. Not only will this help to save you ink and paper, it will also give the recipient quicker and easier access to the document.
Don’t Spam the Printer with Jobs When There is an Issue
We’ve all been there. We’ve hit ‘Print’ on the computer but nothing happens and your document hasn’t started printing. So we hit ‘Print’ again… and again and again. Suddenly, the printer starts working and 30 copies of the same document start to print.
If a printer has stopped working, make sure to check the most common issues such as ink levels and paper levels. Usually the printer’s display screen will tell you what the issue is so you can get it fixed. Before resuming printing, make sure to clear any duplicate copies that are scheduled to be printed.
Not sure what the odd symbol on your printer means? You can find a list of the most common HP printer error codes and fixes and Canon error codes and solutions.
Cutting Costs with DMS
Are you looking for ways to save money and reduce wasted time and resources for your business? At DMS, we take care of it all; IT consultancy, cloud services, audio/video equipment, cyber security, software solutions, reprographics and print management solutions all tailored to your place of work. Find out more about our services by getting in touch today.
