Managed print services for accounting firms, office by office

According to the Australian Taxation Office, a tax return lodged without an agent is due by 31 October.

Clients who lodge through a registered agent are told their own due date by that agent.

Do your offices print most before 31 October? Size each printer for that stretch.

Every printer is then matched to the 3 plans and the pages each one includes.

Each page over a plan's monthly allowance is charged extra, at the excess page rate you were quoted.

Excess page rates are normally the same at every location the firm runs.

A colour plan suits an office that prints client reports with charts.

An office that prints mostly letters and returns may need black and white only.

Each office's page counts are reviewed before the firm commits, so each plan can be sized on real counts.

GDS monitors toner, and the office hears when a cartridge is getting low.

A multifunction printer, one that scans and copies as well, often holds its past jobs on an internal drive.

A scanned bank statement can stay on that drive after the paper goes back to the client.

Encryption and overwrite, on a model that supports them, reduce what that drive retains.

Encryption scrambles the stored copies. Overwrite clears them away.

The drive goes with the printer when the agreement ends.

A wipe at that point costs extra, so put it in writing before you commit.

Ask how each wipe is recorded, office by office.

A firm's own printers stay outside the agreement, so decide what happens to each old drive.

With held printing, also called secure print, a return waits in the queue for a staff card or code.

Release software called PaperCut runs it. That release is an optional extra, priced in your quote.

An accountant who works across 2 offices can collect at either one with the same card.

1. List every office with its printers and its lease end month.
2. Before the firm commits, every office's costs are reviewed.
3. The first office comes across once its own lease has run out.
4. The others come later, so a firm of 5 offices may take 5 separate months to join.

No office needs to break a lease early to join.

Breaking one early depends on that lease. Only its supplier can price that.

An office the firm opens or buys later is added to the agreement, and the monthly figure is adjusted.

When an office joins, the end date of the agreement may stay or move later.

The firm pays one invoice, and every office receives its own report.

The firm can then see each office's printing cost on its own line.

See how one bill splits into a line for each practice office.

The wider service is set out in managed print for a firm spread across several towns.

1. Staff ring the support line and say which printer has stopped.
2. An authorised dealer or the manufacturer is then sent to that office by GDS.
3. GDS keeps the job open until the printer is working again.

Capital city office

Generally, a technician is there inside 4 hours.

Regional town office

Generally on the next business day.

Both times describe the usual pattern. Neither one is a contract term.

Practice offices are serviced across Australia, from a city tower to a country town.

Keep the support number beside each printer, so any staff member can make the call.