Benefits of a Print Audit

If you asked a business owner what their biggest expenses are, they’d probably be quick to rattle off rent or occupancy costs and payroll expenditures as top operational costs. But, one of the biggest expenses for most businesses is something you wouldn’t expect – printing.

Whether you know it or not, copiers and printers are the lifeblood of your day-to-day operations. If you’re not optimising this part of your company, it could be costing you hours of lost time and hundreds – or even thousands – of pounds.

That’s why more and more companies have decided to invest in print audits. These customised evaluations are the quickest and simplest way to get to the root of your inefficient printing habits, fix them and optimise your print and overall work environment. Here are just a few of the benefits a print audit can offer you:

Analyse and Understand Your Print Environment

In many companies, office administrators and IT professionals split the responsibility of managing printing devices. While this usually works fairly well on a day-to-day basis, it’s also the perfect storm for disconnects to occur. In most cases, the administrator or IT person assumes that the other is taking care of things – whether it’s tracking print volumes or monitoring usage. In reality, neither person nor department has a thorough understanding of the overall print environment.

Print audits are a quick and easy way to get a fact-based breakdown of your print environment. Many of these begin with a scan of your network output devices, which tells you supply levels, meter readings and page counts, among other things. An audit will also tell you the ratio of print volume to each individual device, total cost of ownership per-device and if there are any redundant devices.

Save Money – and the Environment

With a thorough understanding of your print environment, you can now work to improve it. Whether it’s switching to devices with lower energy consumption or reducing paper usage by printing more efficiently, you’ll get a customised solution to fix your printing problems.

Your individual benefits will vary based on your initial print environment and consequential solution. These can range from more office space – after consolidating your fleet – to improved efficiency. All these positive side effects work together to foster a more pleasant office space, while adding to your bottom line. And, since reducing waste and improving efficiency go hand-in-hand with minimising your environmental footprint, print audits help you accomplish all three.

Optimise Workflows

Print audits do not solely help you understand your printing environment. In a larger sense, they help you figure out how information flows through your organisation. With a comprehensive print audit, you’ll be able to find areas of inefficiency and note alternate options that will improve the speed and processes of your workflows. This will reduce employee downtime and frustration, while saving you money in the long term.

If you’re interested in a print audit, the local experts at Cartridge World are more than happy to help. Our objective, fact-based summary of current printing activities and costs will provide you all the insights necessary to determine immediate and future improvement opportunities. To learn more about our print audits, contact us here.