Each year, there are over 17 billion faxes sent worldwide.

Clearly, faxing is a necessity in most workplaces today and it doesn’t appear that will be changing anytime in the near future. With public safety concerns and social distancing causing the majority of Michigan employers to switch to a largely remote workforce, the continued need for secure faxing options has led more organizations to consider making the change from traditional analog fax lines to advanced eFax solutions.

eFax technologies have been thriving, especially in this new work environment. eFax solutions come in a variety of packages, but they generally exist as add-ons that you can purchase along with your all-in-one copiers and multifunction printers.

Today, we’re going to look at how an eFax solution could allow your employees the convenience of securely sending and receiving faxed documents from the comfort of their home office.

What is an Analog Fax Machine?

Traditional analog fax machines have been around for decades. They utilize an analog phone line, just like the ones that are used for traditional landline phones. The fax uses the analog line to send or receive one fax at a time that it prints out from either a stand-alone fax machine or a multifunction printer / copier.

These fax machines rely heavily on paper and must have a hard copy physically scanned into the fax machine in order to send an outgoing fax. Incoming faxes are generally printed out on physical documents at the time they are received at the physical fax location. This can become a problem when employers begin switching to a remote workforce setup.

What is eFaxing?

eFaxing uses the same fax number that you already have set up for your organization. The big difference is that instead of using a traditional analog line, eFaxing allows documents to be sent digitally through a server. By sending this information digitally, it can be forwarded to email by pdf, saved to shared folders or even accessed by mobile phone, depending on how your organization chooses to set it up.

Providers like AOS, use your same fax number to send and receive faxes, so no information has to be updated with your contacts.

How do Employees use eFaxing Remotely?

Employees working remotely can be set up so that they can “email” out faxes. By attaching a pdf document to an email and sending it to the destination fax number, their faxes will come through in the same way as they would if they manually faxed them from the physical fax machine in the office.

What Does eFaxing Cost?

In conjunction with managed print services, switching to digital eFaxing can actually end up saving you a lot of money.

The average cost of the analog phone line that offices traditionally use to fax can run anywhere from $40 to $200 a month. Digital eFax technologies run substantially less. In a recent account analysis, a AOS eFax digital solution that included HIPAA compliant secure servers, converting the current analog lines over, and setting up email and shared folder destinations still ended up offering a monthly savings of over $650 when compared to their current analog fax lines.

That monthly savings doesn’t even take into account the added staff productivity or lessened printing costs!

A Continuing Solution

In the end, eFax solutions are not only useful for working with your remote workforce. The benefits of eFaxing can have a positive long-term impact on any organization. Whether it’s cost-savings or enhanced productivity, eFaxing can offer innovative solutions to meet your office’s needs.