Calculating the current cost of each print (cost-per-print) gives you a starting point for managing a company's total costs. This calculation will give you an overview of how much your organisation pays to print daily, weekly, monthly or annually, depending on the calculations you want.
Thanks to current technological developments and a few changes in workplace habits, printing has become one of the best and most surprisingly effective ways to cut business costs quickly.
There are many fairly simple ways to optimise and reduce printing costs that can be implemented in-house by your employees, management team or IT department. However, for more complex solutions with long-term results, it is essential to work with an expert managed print services provider such as ROEL.
What does optimising printing costs in your company mean?
In short, optimising your company's print environment means implementing integrated printing solutions designed to reduce the related expenses while increasing productivity.
When you work with a strong provider like ROEL, the following steps can be taken to optimise printing costs:
Assessing the company's print environment
An assessment can also identify potential security risks in your current print environment.
Cost control
Many organisations don't understand what their real printing costs are.
Printing costs don't just include the equipment, consumables and maintenance. Companies also need to factor in the cost of wasted paper, IT resources and the energy costs associated with running the equipment. Once these costs are understood, companies can put a plan in place to control the real expenses of their print environment.
By creating and implementing the plan, you should be able to:
- Anticipate future costs;
- Automate consumables and supply resources.
Standardisation and choosing the right equipment
An assessment will help identify old and redundant printing devices that can be removed. This equipment often needs more maintenance and is less energy-efficient, which means higher costs overall.
In addition, standardising across devices creates consistency and makes management easier for employees in the office and for those working from home or in a hybrid arrangement.
Remote monitoring
Remote monitoring is a modern feature that cannot be applied to old, outdated printing equipment. It does, however, allow remote management of all modern office printing devices, including multifunction printers, as well as toner-based production printers, laser printers and inkjet printers.
Remote monitoring and management are essential for identifying areas for optimisation, because you can anticipate when new consumables and maintenance are needed, helping to minimise downtime and make better use of valuable IT resources.
Security
Ask any business owner what keeps them up at night, and security will be at the top of their list. Simply put, it is not enough just to make sure printing devices are secure in the office.
As more and more employees use printing equipment remotely, you need to make sure security settings are enabled, managed and monitored on all of the company's printing devices. That way, your data stays safe and protected from potential hackers.
How to optimise printing costs in your company using the cost-per-print calculation
At the start, we talked about the importance of knowing the cost of each print and the role it plays in reducing expenses and improving overall productivity.
Of course, the best way to calculate the cost of each print is, once again, to ask your print provider to install smart software that monitors printing in real time. This method produces the most accurate results.
Find out how and when you should turn to contract printing.
The alternative is to gather the necessary information manually and do the calculation yourself. Here's how:
- Identify the manufacturer and model number of the printer(s) you use. Cost-per-print calculations vary by printer type and manufacturer, so establish this information before you start;
- Determine the yield of each cartridge you use. Most manufacturers share page yield figures in their equipment descriptions, and this information can often be found on the side of the toner cartridge packaging. Different page yield figures are given for black-and-white and colour printing;
- Determine the price of each cartridge. If you want to calculate the exact printing cost, you will need to know the cost of the cartridges you use for each device. You may need help from your accounts department to get these details. To determine the black-and-white printing cost, you only need the price of the black toner cartridge. For colour, you will need the cost of all the cartridges: black, cyan, magenta and yellow.
At first glance, you might think all printing expenses are obvious (equipment, maintenance, consumables). But these costs only paint part of the picture. Real printing costs also include related costs such as employee time and the equipment's life cycle.
Let's take a quick look at each of these:
- Equipment - the acquisition cost, which may be a full purchase price, a lease or a cost-per-page contract;
- Consumables - ongoing expenses including toner, paper and other print media;
- Maintenance and support - monthly service contracts or one-off maintenance fees;
- Employee time - the time employees spend printing, ordering consumables, scheduling equipment maintenance and so on;
- Equipment life cycle - depreciation, plus the availability of newer, better equipment.
Collecting all this information manually can be time-consuming. Work with ROEL's experts to optimise your printing costs and increase your company's productivity!
