You’re tired of keeping separate devices in your office. The printer constantly flashes the “low toner” light, even though you were sure you replaced it just last week. The scanner refuses to properly align the pages. A customer asked you to fax a proposal like it’s the early 2000s, so you’ve got to dust off the fax machine and figure out how to use it. There’s got to be a better way to handle office documentation. And there is. A business multifunction printer (MFP) combines a printer, scanner, and fax machine into one package (and some models even sit on a desktop). But don’t just rush out to buy the first machine you can find. Read through these considerations to narrow your options and simplify the process.
Choosing The Business Multifunction Printer That’s Best For You
There are three main categories to consider when determining which type of MFP to buy for your office: size/scale, color, and printing method. We’ll go through these in a bit more detail.
Printer Size
Printer size is essential in two aspects: how much office space the printer requires, and what is the largest paper size for printing.
With the first one, the focus is typically on the volume of printing you need. A small business multifunction printer is typically not that much different from a home office all-in-one printer, easily fitting on a desktop. It’s a great way to centralize your document processing without needing a lot of office space. However, smaller devices typically sacrifice print or scan quality, speed, and additional features to get there.
An enterprise multifunction printer, on the other hand, is typically freestanding, with larger models getting wheels for a semblance of mobility. This kind of printer is meant to process tens or even hundreds of thousands of pages per month, making them indispensable for large-scale projects and companies with significant printing needs.
The second aspect of printer size has more to do with what your business does and needs from a printer. Typically, office printer-scanners accept pages up to legal size (14×8.5 inches), which is above the most common European standard (A4 at 11.7×8.3 inches). For a majority of companies, these two paper sizes will be enough for the bulk of the actual work, and larger sizes (such as those meant for advertising) can be outsourced for convenience.
However, some companies need to use larger paper. Depending on who you ask, printers that can print in sizes larger than legal are considered wide-format printers. However, A3 printers (16.5×11.7 inches) are still relatively common for smaller businesses to be included in “normal-sized” printing. Graphic design and CAD-oriented companies (engineering and architecture firms) can use A3 as a stepping stone to wide-format printing to get a solid printing result without spending too many resources on the final design.
Monochrome vs. Color Printers
When considering whether to buy a monochrome (black-and-white) or a color business multifunction printer, you might be under the impression that the more colors it can print in, the better. Unfortunately, it gets a bit more complex than that.
Monochrome printing hardware is typically more affordable and easier to implement into devices. So, getting a monochrome printer is less expensive than obtaining a full-color model, if the rest of the specifications are the same. This means that you can typically find a printer that works faster or is of higher quality if you decide to forego being able to print in color.
Furthermore, just because an MFP only prints in black and white, that doesn’t mean it can only work in monochrome. The scanner (and fax) function will typically work in full color. So, if you need a printer to digitize documents and preserve the signature or stamp colors on your contracts, this kind of printer will work just fine.
Printing Methods
Last, but not least, consider the actual printing method your new business multifunction printer will use.
The first option is inkjet printing, where the printer head dispenses small droplets of ink directly onto the page. The ink seeps onto the page and blends a bit with the neighboring droplets, creating a more seamless look. If your company works with many high-resolution photos and needs to print them often, an inkjet printer will give you better results. One of the downsides of this method is that it’s slower.
Laser printers use a toner cartridge that stores negatively charged powdered toner (pigment), while a positively charged drum is etched on by a laser to create the image that needs to be printed. The drum attracts the toner and passes it onto the paper, which is then heated to melt the powder. The process is lightning-fast and applies to all toner colors nearly simultaneously. Since the toner doesn’t bleed as much, you won’t get the same color saturation as with an inkjet printer. However, laser printers make much more detailed text documents even at lower budgets.
Determining the Cost of Your Business Multifunction Printer
But you might not be interested in the minutiae of how a printer functions and want to get into the fine print of “How much will it cost?”
Somewhat ironically, the type of printer you choose will heavily influence not only its price tag but its overall running costs.
Every choice you make in the main categories directly affects how your business multifunction printer performs and its total cost. A self-standing printer designed for processing 50,000 or more pages per month can cost 10 times as much as a desktop-sized all-in-one printer. A printer that works with paper sizes larger than legal starts costing exponentially more the larger it gets.
As mentioned, the choice between color and monochrome printing is also one that needs to balance budget vs. performance. But it’s also the printing type that influences this, particularly due to consumable costs.
Inkjet printers use either ink tanks or ink cartridges, while laser printers use toner cartridges. All of these are meant to be disposable or consumable items, and each printer model comes with a detailed list of consumables it accepts. The consumables themselves are rated for a set number of pages, so you can track their prices and specifications to determine the average cost of printing a single page.
In general, going higher in printer quality (and cost) brings down the cost-per-page. You have to determine how much of an initial investment you can bear and how often you need to print (and whether the printing is monochrome or full color).
How to Get the Best Device for Your Business
With all these different categories and pricing factors in mind, you might revert to your previous plan of getting the first business multifunction printer you can find. After all, there are so many different models to consider, not to mention the varying costs of the printer itself.
Fortunately, there are a few ways to expedite the process. You can either spend some time researching the best options that will work in the short term and make peace with the fact that you can always buy and resell a printer every few years (since the tech is constantly evolving). Or, you can partner with a business technology company that can take care of your problem permanently. With over half a century of experience in the industry, Buckmaster Office Solutions has all the experience and customer service you need to make smart decisions.
Buckmaster has served Sacramento businesses for generations, putting them on the cutting edge in all office equipment matters. Our dedication ensures that companies can safely and quickly digitize and streamline their documentation processing. So, contact Buckmaster and get the office solutions you need to grow.