Fax Machine Solution for Small Office

phuschnickens

I work in an office of 9 people. For the last 7 years that I've worked here we have all shared a single, consumer grade fax machine. Because of the type of work we do it is used hard on a daily basis. Today it suddenly started having paper pulling issues and forced us to be at a crossroads:

Do we pay to replace all of the rollers in an 9 year old fax machine, spring for another consumer grade one, pay for a quality fax machine, pay for a fancy network fax machine, or try to move to some 21st century solution?

While we do sometimes have files that are ready to fax right off the computer, sometimes we only have a hard copy, or we need to jot down a note before sending, etc (ie. we still need some sort of scanning ability). It's important that the solution does not greatly increase our cost or create too much additional work for my technophobic co-workers. As far as I can see it the solution may just be to stick with a single, quality fax machine that everyone shares, it's just hard to believe that's truly the best option in the year 2012.

Does anyone have experience in this realm? Suggestions? Ideas? Musings?

Thanks,
Pete

Kwitko

I hate faxes. With a passion. They have outlived their usefulness. However, we have a great many non-technical vendors who still use them. Like you, I have technophobes in my office. We implemented a fax server that emails PDF copies of faxes. The fax is set up as a printer driver, so anything that can printed can be faxed.

We are using a product called FaxFinder. Works well. The alternative to faxing is to ask your customers to join the rest of the planet and FUCKING USE EMAIL!

Tushon

From my one-corporate-environment knowledgebase:
There are eFax solutions involving a scanner (we have a big copier/scanner combo that ties in with a computer with the scanning software, so it can either fax, PDF to an email address, act as a network printer etc) that may be something like what you want, but that is a big initial investment and if you ONLY need a fax, that probably wouldn't be an ideal solution. Also, I don't think you could justify the overall solution cost for 9 people unless you were in the market for a network printer.

We also have regular fax machines, but I don't know if they are used for anything beyond receiving faxes, given that we have eFax for everything else. It would be nice if everyone just standard shifted to PDF via email, but I'm not an overlord. There are others in better positions to chime in for this than me.

NiGHTS

For what it's worth, no matter what decision you make with how to go about solving this problem, someone is going to inevitably complain about how the old way was easier simply due to the fact that they've done it that way for x years.

Don't worry so much about appeasing others as you do making the decision that makes the most sense feature-wise for your business/office/whatever. I'm not implying this is how you're approaching it, I just figured it was worth saying. People hate change (especially technophobes), no matter what you do.

phuschnickens

I should mention that we do indeed have a large, networked copier (though we don't have the software that allows for it to save scans to a network share). However, because the copier is often tied up with long print runs, it wouldn't be feasible to use it as a scanner. The ideal for me would be for each employee to have a decent scanner at their desk and some sort of electronic fax service. Unfortunately I don't believe our budget will cover 9 scanners plus the ongoing cost of electronic fax service. The hunt continues. In the meantime it appears one of our maintenance inclined employees managed to hack the fax machine back together with some well-placed packing tape.

Kwitko

We have e-fax at everyone's desk. We also have a physical fax machine just in case. We also have a gentleman who, when he receives an email, will print it out, write his reply on it, then fax it back to the customer.

Tushon

We have e-fax at everyone's desk. We also have a physical fax machine just in case. We also have a gentleman who, when he receives an email, will print it out, write his reply on it, then fax it back to the customer.

ohgodwhy ... I also have those people. Working at a quasi-federal agency supporting a rapidly aging client base. Good times. We are about to hit the Windows 7/Office 2010 update cycle sometime between Q2/3. All the lulz will be had.