It’s an increasingly digital world. Over 66% of the world’s population have access to the internet in 2025, and that’s expected to grow to 98% by 2029. Meanwhile, people spend an average of 6.5 hours online every day, much of that time on their mobile phones. And yet, businesses still need printed documents as much as ever. From invoices and meeting notes to contracts and all manner of marketing materials, printed documents seem here to stay. This makes it vital that they have the right printing equipment and processes are in place to keep the documents you need flowing without disruption. Printer management is the key. But what is printer management, and what’s the best way to approach it for your business? Keep reading to find out.
What Is Printer Management
In a nutshell, printer management is the management, administration, tracking, and monitoring of your printers and copiers and their output. At the simplest level, that means ensuring that your printer hardware connects easily to the devices you’ll be printing from, so that your print jobs take place without unnecessary disruption to your business or create any unexpected expenses.
However, there’s a lot more to print management than just ensuring that the text and images in your documents appear correctly on printed pages. Print management also involves managing and maintaining your print devices, monitoring your print output, keeping track of costs, securing your data throughout the printing process, and monitoring and controlling user behavior.
While some elements of printer management are physical, such as cleaning your printers or replacing parts, these days, much of the printer management process is handled by specialized software. Printer management software can also handle the administration of your copying, scanning, faxing, and other document management processes, typically all from within the same application.
Server or Serverless?
Choosing where to host your printer management software is one of the fundamental printer management decisions you’ll have to make. There are basically two options – server-based or serverless.
With server-based print management, your printer management software is hosted and runs from a dedicated print server within your office. The upside of this solution is that everything is in-house, and you can print from devices that are directly connected, even when the internet is down. On the other hand, you’ll need to purchase a dedicated machine to act as the server, make space for it in your office, connect all your devices and printers to it, and then maintain it.
With serverless print management, your printer management software is hosted online, in the cloud. This can either be a self-hosted or single-tenant solution, or a fully hosted / multi-tenant solution. The downside here is that your software is hosted off-site and won’t be accessible if the internet is not available for any reason. Conversely, cloud solutions can often be much more secure, and you won’t have to buy and maintain a dedicated server, freeing your IT staff to focus on higher-priority tasks.
Components of Printer Management
Let’s take a closer look at what printer management entails.
- Print enablement – Setting up the users and devices on your network for simple, efficient printing to your fleet of printers.
- Maintenance – Keeping your fleet of printers in perfect working order, servicing them regularly, conducting repairs when needed, and updating client- and server-side software.
- IT integration – Integrating your printer setup into your existing IT infrastructure, including both hardware and software integrations.
- Print security – Protecting your data and documents throughout the print job cycle, from the preparation of the documents to the printing process itself, and finally, the actual printing. This process involves user authentication, authorization, and other forms of access control.
- Consumable management and waste reduction – Monitoring and controlling the usage of paper, ink, toner, and other consumables to ensure you never run out, and to reduce waste and improve print efficiency.
- Controlling costs – Minimizing equipment waste (paper, toner, etc.), thus reducing printing costs, which can be a major benefit of printer management.
Different Needs for Different Business Types
While printing is the process of converting digital files to paper documents, print management processes can be very different depending on the type and size of business.
Enterprises
For large enterprises with numerous users and devices, maximum uptime and availability are critical. Printer management solutions need to be highly dependable, scalable, and highly secure. In-house IT teams can facilitate most, if not all, of your print management needs.
SMBs
With more limited resources, time, and users, SMBs (small-to-medium-sized businesses) need printer management solutions that are not IT-intensive, cost-effective, and easy to use for employees who are not necessarily tech-savvy. Serverless solutions usually work best in these settings.
Education
Schools and universities typically need to cater to a wide variety of print requests from staff and students, which can come from a huge diversity of devices. Security and usage monitoring are particularly important in these settings.
Healthcare
In healthcare settings, particular care must be taken to preserve patient confidentiality and to remain compliant with regulatory bodies like HIPAA. Printer management for healthcare providers also often entails custom integrations with specialized software like EMR systems.
Legal
For legal companies, the three C’s are of paramount importance – cost recovery, compliance, and confidentiality. Printer management software should enable legal firms to enact cost-recovery processes and integrate with highly specialized legal software, while preserving the strictest client confidentiality.
Manage In-House or Outsource to an MPS Provider?
A key question with printer management is – should you be handling your print management in-house, or outsourcing it to specialists? Managed Print Services (MPS) is a rapidly growing sector in the IT industry because it can handle most, if not all, aspects of printer management for your business for a simple monthly fee.
If you lack the in-house IT staff to effectively manage your printing process, MPS is an excellent option to consider. For a predetermined fee, you’ll have peace of mind that your printer fleet will be well-maintained and expertly integrated with your IT stack. Your consumables and their usage will also be properly managed, and when things go wrong, expert assistance will be just a call away, without incurring large call-out fees.
An Expert Printing Partner
If you’re looking for a high-quality MPS provider or just want to discuss the different printer management options that are available so you can make the best call for your business in Sacramento, reach out to Buckmaster Office Solutions. With a stellar reputation from almost six decades of expert service, we have a printer management solution perfect for you. Contact us today for a free quote.