Save Costs with a Print Audit

http://www.xeretec.co.uk/blog
Save Costs with a Print Audit
Making sure your running costs are kept as low as you can has always been a major factor in running a successful company. However, in today’s rather difficult financial climate, saving money wherever you can has become more important than ever. Obviously, there are many costs associated with running a successful business, with some easier to cost than others. It is the difficult-to-measure hidden costs that can truly undermine a business’s performance. One of these problem areas is printing.

What Is a Print Audit?

In its simplest form, a print audit calculates the overall cost of printing over a set period of time. By drilling down to the core and analysing how much it costs for an organisation to print a single item, both in black and white and colour, it then becomes possible to identify just how much that organisation really spends on the entire printing process.

After using print audit services, many organisations are horrified by just how much is spent on the printing. After all, the printing process is one of those functions that is taken for granted. There are not too many businesses out there which possess the time, or indeed the inclination, to check their printing expenditure. Even if they did find the time and manpower to research printing costs, it would be extremely hard to obtain any truly accurate figures. To get a better picture of just how much of an organisation’s money is ploughed into printing, it is better to bring in the services of print audit professionals.

Print audits which are carried out in-house will normally only take into account a variety of factors. These are the cost factors which are easy to see, such as money spent on printer cartridges, ink and paper. While all of these contribute to the overall expense, the real cost of the printing process is still a long way from being established. It is the costs which often remain hidden from all which have the potential to cause the most damage to a business’s bottom line. These hidden costs are estimated to account for over half of a company’s printing expenditure. So just what are these hidden costs and how can they be readily brought into the light?

The Hidden Costs of Printing

Hidden printing costs include, but are not limited to, maintenance of the network and printers, the printing of colour documents when B and W would do and the actual energy-efficiency of each printing machine. In a big organisation, it is virtually impossible for management to accurately monitor how many sheets of paper are being printed per day and whether that number could actually be reduced without impacting on the business.