It sure is tempting for employees to make color copies on your nickel instead of their rip off inkjet printer at home. I don’t know about you but my inkjet at home seems to have a permanent toner leak. It’s always asking for more and it ain’t cheap!
In the old days companies would buy third party hardware such as HECON to control copy usage. Today you can do it for free by activating the User Code feature of your current copier or MFP.
Many people don’t take advantage of the copy control features available on copiers. Most of the newer copiers have features such as User Codes. Unless a user puts in their code they can’t get copies or prints. That makes everyone accountable since the owner or manager can monitor usage any time they access the control panel or web browser. This cuts out unauthorized copying and printing big time.
This is free and easy to set up. Many copiers today don’t come with the traditional Owners Manual like in the old days. You may have to go to the manufacturers website to view the free Owners Manual. If that’s too complicated just wait until the next service call and ask the tech how to set it up.
That’s the free stuff that just about all copiers have resident. There are more sophisticated approaches to this as well for true cost accounting. It may be available for free on your current copier. If not, there are third party software partners that most copier manufacturers work with who can provide this for a cost. Have your IT person look into this and ask your copier sales rep for their current offerings in this area.
This issue is more important now that more companies are leasing color MFPs and the maintenance agreement has much higher rates for color pages. Employees know what a rip off it is do print at home on their inkjet MFP so it may be tempting to run the copies at work.
Speak Your Mind