Printing costs are a big mystery to some businesses. They have no idea what they’re spending. Without this oversight, money is easily lost. For example, when companies order consumables that aren’t needed or are already in stock. According to Gartner, total print costs can be as much as 3% of a company’s annual revenue. Therefore, printing is one of the most significant operating expenses. Tracking them provides a golden opportunity to save money and improve efficiencies.
 
Why Print Costs Aren’t Tracked
  • Everyone in the office needs to print, which creates multiple requests.
  • Low costs for consumables mean spending authorization isn’t needed.
  • Several people within a company are authorized to purchase supplies. There’s no centralized purchasing.
  • Printing is not on a senior manager’s agenda.
  • Supplies are often hidden under “general expenses.”
 
Monitoring Print Supplies
If you aren’t monitoring print supplies, you don’t know what’s going on. Employees could be printing materials for personal use or wasting paper and ink by printing documents they don’t need. Also, wasteful printing practices could be the norm rather than the exception. They include:
  • Replacing toner cartridges as soon as the warning light comes on. However, these warnings can appear when as much as 25% of the toner is left.
  • Only printing on one side of the paper.
  • Using color printing when black and white will do.
  • Printing web pages with extraneous material such as advertisements in the margin.
 
Conduct A Print Assessment
If any of this sounds familiar, you could be losing a small fortune every year in wasteful printing. Conduct a comprehensive print assessment to get a handle on what’s going on. Review several months’ worth of costs to build an accurate picture of your spending. You’ll probably be surprised by how much money is flying out the door.
 
Once you know this, you can see where wastage is happening. Create a budget and stick to it as much as you can. Then every few months, reevaluate print usage and costs. This may take up much of your time, but the savings will be worth it.
 
Contact us today for a free print assessment and more information about how we can help you track and control printing costs with Managed Print Services.