How Many Pages Did Your Office Print Last Month?

It is a simple question with a real number attached, and the number already exists. The equipment has been counting the whole time.

The count is not an estimate

A print agreement that bills by the page needs a page count to bill against, and that count comes off the equipment itself.

Where it appears depends on the machine. Some report it on the panel. Some through a built-in web page. Some in a report a technician pulls on a service visit. Whoever services the equipment can say where it lives on yours and how to read it. That is true whether the machine sits in Lafayette, Houma, or Morgan City.

Why the count matters more than the invoice

An invoice says what you were charged. The count says what the office did.

Put the two together and there is something to compare. The page allowance in the agreement is a number. The count is a number. The distance between them is where an overage rate applies, if the agreement carries one.

What to do with it once you have it

Take a reading and write down the date. Take another at the end of the month. The difference is that month's volume, and now it exists somewhere other than an invoice.

Do that twice and there is something a projection cannot give you: what the office actually prints, in a busy month and a quiet one.

That is the number to hold the agreement against, rather than the estimate somebody made before the equipment arrived. It is the same exercise whether the office is in Lafayette or Morgan City.

Color and black and white are counted apart

Where an agreement prices color differently from black and white, the two are counted separately. Ask for both readings rather than one total.

If the color count comes back higher than anybody in the office expected, the default setting on the machine is the first thing worth checking, before anybody's printing habits.

Where to get help reading it

Classic Business Products has sold, leased, and serviced office print equipment across South Louisiana since 1986. Taking a reading and holding it against an agreement is a conversation about what the equipment is doing, not a pitch to replace it.

If you want a hand finding the count on your machine, in Lafayette, Houma, Morgan City or anywhere across South Louisiana, call (800) 738-2200.