Beware the Evil Fax Machine: Adventures in Faxing

Faxing has been around for some time now. It's recently been overshadowed by the e-mail but it's never actually gone away. Most of us have needed to send or receive a fax before, whether it be an invoice, a time sheet or for marketing purposes. And most of us have encountered problems when using a fax machine. The machine running out of ink, running out of paper and of course the dreaded engaged tone! Valuable time is wasted at the fax machine, although granted it's a great excuse to catching up on the office gossip, "I am just waiting for an important fax.." when in actual fact you are catching up on your favourite TV show or whether you think a certain colleague is pulling his weight. The truth is it's a waste of time, and leads to a less productive day. You then have to worry about paper and toner supplies, not only is it expensive, its bad for the environment. A recent study has confirmed that paper costs are set to rise to counterbalance the rise in papermill
production costs. Half the faxes you receive you will shred almost immediately or file away somewhere never to be seen again. Toner gets everywhere? Whether you are shaking the last remaining ink out of an old one or replacing an existing one with a leaky new one. It's messy business and totally unnecessary these days. The whole process of sending a fax takes time. Time that could effectively be put to better use. We no longer have the patience that we once did; especially in business when, as the saying goes, "Time is Money". There is also the security aspect of receiving faxes at a communal fax machine. Faxes often get lost or misplaced, given to the wrong person or fallen down the back of the in-tray never to be seen again. You run the risk of important, confidential information contained in faxes being delayed or read by somebody else. Don't despair; there are a number of fax service providers that can come to the rescue. Microsoft has MS FAX already installed o
n most computers, a few minutes spent configuring the settings and you are good to send and receive faxes on your computer. You will still need phone lines and fax modems and the like but it's a much better solution than traditional faxing. An even better idea is to outsource. There are plenty of internet fax services available that can make your life easier. Faxes are sent from your email; usually you just need to add @fax.com or something similar at the end of the fax number. You send a fax as you would an email. When you receive a fax it goes straight into your inbox and is viewed as a PDF. You can then choose to print, save it, delete it.  You save on paper, time and the environment. It can cost as little as £0.03 to send a fax using an internet fax provider, it is much more cost effective that paying for phone lines, toner, paper, maintenance. The list is endless. A service like this would be invaluable to new businesses. Setting up a business can cost a lot of  mo
ney and there is  the possibility to save hundreds annually by taking this route. Beware the Evil Fax Machine: Get yourself an Internet Fax Provider.

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