# How to reduce printing costs for organisations with printers at five or more offices

Source: https://managedprinterservices.com/reduce-printing-costs/
Last updated: 2026-10-04
Operated by Global Document Solutions, ABN 89 567 852 183, Unit 1/8 Glasson Dr, Bethania QLD 4205. Phone 1300 873 460.

## How to reduce printing costs across several offices

8 offices can mean 8 suppliers, 8 end dates and 8 ways of buying toner.

The cost hides in that spread, where no single bill adds up the total.

Seven levers bring it into one view, starting with a printer count.

- Whether one agreement suits your count
- Operated by Global Document Solutions.

### Every office's printing on one page

Name your offices, and roughly how many printers each one runs.

Global Document Solutions brings a group's offices under one printer agreement, so printing shows as one monthly figure per device.

### Where do printing costs hide across several offices?

In the gaps between suppliers, where no single bill shows the total.

In many groups, each office tends its own printer, its own toner order and its own service call.

Kyocera Document Solutions Australia writes that most companies still choose printers on the sale price.

Its October 2017 guide adds paper and toner to the machine, then power and servicing over the printer's life.

In one office, a manager can keep that in their head.

Across 8 offices, the same costs land on different desks in different months.

The Federal Government's Green Office Guide, as cited by Canon Australia, puts each office worker at 10,000 sheets of A4 a year.

Multiply that by every desk in the group, and the paper alone is a real line.

Nobody can cut a cost they never see in one place.

Whether one agreement suits your office count is argued on the page that tests the sums for your group.

This page covers the levers that work at any office count.

Every lever here comes with no savings figure attached.

Last updated 4 October 2026.

### How do you reduce printing costs in a business?

7 levers, worked office by office and in this order.

- Count every printer at every office, with the pages each one prints a month.
- Match each printer to its site's monthly load, well under its duty cycle.
- Retire desk printers in favour of shared ones where the floor plan allows.
- Set black and white, double sided printing as the default where your policy allows.
- Hold each job until its owner releases it at the printer with a card or code.
- Put toner and parts on one monthly figure per device, with labour and servicing.
- Move each office across as its current agreement ends, one at a time.

The first four can start before any supplier changes.

The last three involve your supplier, so they take longer.

Start with the count, because every other lever depends on its numbers.

### How many printers does each office need?

As many as each site's monthly pages call for.

A printer's page counter, read a month apart, shows what each site prints.

List the make and model beside each reading.

Then compare each machine's load with the monthly volume its maker recommends.

According to GOM's August 2026 guide, a machine's duty cycle is its maker's rated monthly maximum.

CompAndSave's October 2025 guide sets a steady load of 2,500 pages a month beside a 35,000 page rating.

A site printing far below its machine's rating pays for capacity it never uses.

One printing near the rating works its machine hard.

Every desk printer is one more machine to service, often with its own toner.

Shared printers on each floor cut the number of machines to buy toner for.

Both ratings are defined in duty cycle and the other device terms.

A full count of every site is the review done office by office before you commit.

For a first tally, list each office's printer leases in four taps.

From $160 + GST a month per device.

Standard plans, tailored to your fleet. Excess page rates are stated in your quote and are normally the same at every location.

Paper, staples and pages above your agreed volume sit outside that figure.

### Which print rules cut waste at every site?

Four rules, written once and applied the same way at each office.

Kyocera Document Solutions Australia's 2017 guide lists four print policies an office can follow.

- Limit colour printing to the jobs that need it.
- Introduce a double sided print rule.
- Limit large print jobs.
- Allow personal print jobs only with a manager's approval.

According to Canon Australia, follow me printing removes the waste of jobs nobody collects.

A job waits on the network until its owner taps a card or types a code at the printer.

Here PaperCut, a print management program, handles that release as an optional extra priced in your quote.

At 8 offices, the same rules need setting up at each one, or once in shared software.

How held jobs travel between sites is covered in releasing a print job at any branch printer.

Printing with no print server in each office is also offered as an optional extra.

### Why does one agreement make the cost visible?

Because every office's printing arrives on 1 invoice.

Under the agreement, every office gets a supplied printer.

Toner and parts are in every plan, along with labour and servicing.

Each printer's toner is watched, and a low level triggers an update to you.

Every site's printing appears on a single invoice, with a separate report per site.

Finance then reads each office on its own report.

Rates for pages beyond a plan's monthly allowance are set in the quote, and are normally identical across locations.

Standard plans are tailored to each business, office by office.

Whichever office reports a fault, the technician comes from an authorised dealer or the manufacturer.

A capital city generally sees it within 4 hours. Regional towns generally see one the next business day.

The plans per device are set out in what each published plan includes.

The wider case for one agreement is the seven benefits in one list.

Printers are serviced across Australia.

### Can you track printing costs by office, department or client?

By office on the agreement, and further with print management software.

Office by office, the split comes with the agreement itself.

Each site's report shows what that office printed in the month.

Finance can then set one office against another without adding up separate bills.

Splitting the cost inside an office takes software at the printer.

According to PaperCut Software, its reporting can allocate print costs to departments or cost centres.

Its shared accounts let staff pick a client, project or matter code at the printer, so the cost can be charged back.

Here PaperCut is an optional extra, with its cost stated in the quote.

Ask in writing which reports your quote includes, for every office on it.

If finance only needs the split by office, the site reports already give it.

### How do you change offices without breaking a contract early?

One office at a time, each as its current agreement reaches its end date.

Sites join one by one, spread over months.

Each office waits for its own contract's end date, then joins.

The first office can move this quarter and the last one much later.

Open a new office and it comes under the existing agreement.

Its printer adds to the monthly figure, and the term's end can hold or move out.

Machines the group owns outright stay outside the agreement.

At the end of a term, an upgrade with us means the collection fee is ours to pay.

Move to another supplier at that point, and that supplier usually handles the return, or we collect the printers for a fee.

Each office's end date is the first thing to list.

The clauses that decide those dates are in the renewal and exit clauses to check.

### Which lever should each office start with?

The one its own numbers point to.

Seven printing cost levers, and when each office needs one

| Lever | Start here when |
| --- | --- |
| 1. Count every printer | Nobody can say how many the group runs |
| 2. Size to the load | A big machine prints a few hundred pages a month |
| 3. Share printers | Desks each carry their own printer |
| 4. Black and white, double sided | Colour is the default for every job |
| 5. Card or code release | Uncollected pages pile up by the printer |
| 6. One monthly figure | Toner and service bills arrive from several suppliers |
| 7. Staged move | Each office's contract ends on a different date |

For a reading on your own group, list each office in the form below, and each one is costed on its own.

### Printing cost questions from groups with several offices

#### How much can a business save on printing?

This page gives no savings figure.

The answer turns on what each office runs and pays now.

A cost review of each office comes before anything is agreed.

#### Why are printing costs so high in a business?

The purchase price is only the start.

Kyocera Document Solutions Australia counts paper and toner, then power and servicing, over a printer's life.

Across several offices, each of those can be bought separately at each site.

#### Can printing costs come down without changing supplier?

Yes. Counting printers, print rules and black and white defaults work with any supplier.

One agreement adds a single monthly figure per device on top of those.

#### Do the plans charge separately for toner?

No, toner is in all three published plans.

Parts and servicing labour are in them too.

Levels are watched, and you hear when a cartridge runs low.

### Every office's print bill in one place

Say which offices buy their own toner.

### Which offices, and who supplies each one now

List your offices and devices.

Add which supplier each office uses today, if you know.

Operated by Global Document Solutions, an authorised Kyocera partner.

Keep reading

- One agreement for all sites
- Leases ending at each office