Some of the most common, and costliest, expenses your business has involves buying office supplies for your copiers and printers. Paper, inkjet, and toner cartridges are required to produce the documents you need for clients or for business meetings with your staff. However, these items can be expensive, especially if you buy the named brands.
Saving on Office Supplies
In order to cut your overhead costs, you need to reduce the use of paper and ink when you print or copy documents. You can reduce the use of these supplies by sending most documents through email and only sending printouts when necessary. Along with reducing the use of the copiers and printers, you should consider buying supplies in bulk and generic office supplies.
Buying in Bulk
Many companies offer ink and toner cartridges for printers and copiers in bulk amounts, which are less expensive than buying individual new cartridges for your equipment. For the price of one named brand inkjet cartridge, you may be able to buy compatible ink at less than half the price for two or more cartridges.
Compatible Supplies
Every brand of printer and/or copier seems to use a different ink, which makes it harder to find and more expensive to purchase. However, there are companies that make generic, or compatible, ink that you can use in various brands of office equipment. Buying compatible ink, as well as a compatible toner for copiers and printers, could help save your company a significant amount of money over the life of the equipment.
Refilling Cartridges
In addition to buying compatible ink and toner, you can also buy refill kits for both inkjet and toner cartridges. While refilling cartridges can sometimes get messy, if you learn how to do it, you can cut your office supply costs even more. Depending on the brand of equipment and the type of refill you purchase, you can save $10, $20, sometimes $30 on the cost of ink for your printers.
Toner cartridges can also be refilled, which can help you save money when your copiers or laser printers need more toner. Some refill packs can save you up to $100 for certain machines. To find out how much you can save, just look up refills online and find the brand name of the printer or copier you have, then the model number to look up pricing.
Along with saving money, you can also help prevent waste when you refill inkjet and toner cartridges. Since you won’t be tossing empty plastic cartridges in the trash, they will not end up in landfills and the ink will not end up possibly polluting groundwater supplies. If, for some reason, you do need to dispose of cartridges, they can usually be recycled instead of thrown in the trash.
By buying compatible ink and toner in bulk or learning to refill your copier and printer cartridges, you can potentially save your business hundreds of dollars each year in office supply costs. In addition, you can also protect the environment by learning how to refill cartridges.