As any small business owner knows, one of the most troubling costs in the business environment is printing because it is difficult to plan and manage the costs involved.

A lot of businesses opt to go with Multifunction Printers, called MFPs in the trade, because they can literally do it all: printing, scanning, photocopying, and faxing. In this way a business can avoid the cost of having separate devices for each of these functions, and have all of the costs and records for these functions all in one place.

The technology on the market today is, in a word, wonderful, so it is possible to get a MFP to meet just about any business’ needs for a relatively good price and a high degree of functionality. Choosing the right MFP for your business, however, is a critical task to insure that the initial cost is within budget, that ongoing costs for paper, toners and inks are manageable, and that the machine functions strongly in the area(s) needed most by the business at hand.

That’s our business at All Copy Products – helping our customers make the best choice in whatever devices or services they require.

Multifunction printers are often called All-In-Ones, and they offer business owners a ton of advantages. Cost, of course, is a primary issue and it is somewhat axiomatic that a MFP at any level of functionality will cost less than buying or leasing many dedicated machines to perform the needed functions separately.  Plus, a MFP, as a single device as opposed to many, is buy nature more compact, taking up less space, also a cost area. On the downside is that a MFP for the most part can only perform one function at a time, so if there are many people wanting to print, copy, fax, or scan at the same time the line can get pretty long.

Still, the versatility of a MFP has taken hold in businesses large and small, and these wonderful devices have become the center of activity in many office settings.

There remains, however, something of an art in selecting the right one. The first consideration, of course, is initial cost: these devices, depending on what you get, vary widely on initial cost, and such a capital expenditure up-front is an essential element in many a business plan and budget. So, depending on what the business can handle in initial cost, the choices right off the bat can be very limited or quite wide indeed.

The next consideration is cost over time, and there are generally two areas: paper and printing products (toner and ink). The truth is, while a MFP will perform many tasks, most businesses these days don’t send and receive many faxes, and scanning is a limited activity most of the time, so the cost areas to consider are, for most businesses, printing and photocopying.

Experts, like us, recommend by starting at an assessment of your business needs – this will help you decide which way to go, what product to buy. If printing is a key function in your business and will be the lion’s share of the workload for the MFP in question, you want to get one with the best printer possible and perhaps sacrifice a little on the other devices. Conversely, if you do a ton of scanning, then you want a device that will do scans at the appropriate dpi levels required by the business. Same for fax and photocopying; find the machine that handles your requirements and workload adequately.

For printing quality, the main tradeoff in buying an MFP is between quality, initial investment, and ongoing cost, with a key look at ongoing costs. If you copy a lot of stuff and receive a ton of faxes, you’ll go through a ton of “consumables” – paper and printing products. For this level of activity, a laser printer is probably better for the consumables portion, but it will cost more up-front. The alternative, an ink-jet, will cost less initially, but the per-page cost will be greater. For most people we recommend the laser, because unless you’re at the very high end of the market, the initial price difference will not be great and will be made up quickly on the consumables. For a lot of color prints, you’ll get high quality with ink-jets, but more value with lasers if the volume needed is high.

For scanning needs there are two considerations: 1)dpi, a measurement of resolution, and most of the reasonably good MFP will go at least 600 dpi which will handle most needs and be great for faxing, photocopying, and non-professional photos too; and, 2) communication between office machines (desktops and laptop computers). Most offices are PC-based, so you’ll need a MFP that can handle the software to manage the communications between the office PCs and the MFP, but in some cases there are also Macs involved, so the MFP will have to be able to speak multiple languages. There will also be some other software concerns, but most good IT guys can work around that. And don’t forget to investigate the wireless possibilities; many MFPs can connect to the office system over wireless routers.

Many manufacturers will claim higher outputs in resolution -- interpolated resolutions with thousands of dots per inch – but most scanners can’t handle it. Look instead at the scanner’s stated optical resolution, which indicates how much detail it can actually see and reproduce; the higher this value is, the better quality the scans will be.

Of course, the real key to considering a MFP is volume: if you use these machines a lot, if you print, copy and fax with a high level of output, you’ll want the fastest machine you can afford that maintains the resolutions your require. This is often a critical balancing act, one that demands an assessment of use, color or black and white, and the sharp pen of a seasoned accountant. 

Of course, the final thing to consider is what to do when something fails – when, not if. Machines will jam, fail, and otherwise play havoc with work schedules, usually on deadline. What happens most often is that one of the functions fails while the others remain intact, so you have to decide: should I get a machine to replace that function, or just buy a new MFP?  Some of this can be addressed with service contracts, of course, and they tend to be expensive. Many business owners, given this conundrum opt to buy at new MFP, and the second time around the choices are often different because of the use patterns established, and the whole process starts all over again.

Welcome to business.

The good news is that All Copy Products can help you every step of the way with these assessments and choices, and we carry a wide range of quality MFP from such renowned vendors as Minolta, Canon, Sharp, HP, and Muratec.

At All Copy Products we offer more than MFPs. We specialize in Managed Print Services, Document Management, Production and Wide Format printing equipment, Supplies, IT and Scanning Services. All Copy Products was established in 1975 in Denver, and now has locations in Boulder, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, Cheyenne, and Phoenix as well. For complete information call toll free 800-332-2352.

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