Article Advise

submitted: Oct 8th 2008 | by: ChristopherFitch | Total views: 2 | Word Count: 621 | |

One of the reasons so many small business owners and entrepreneurs love Smart Phones like the Blackberry is that they allow for mobility. When it comes to servicing clients or solving problems, you can work from virtually anywhere. But what happens when an e-mail just won't do? What happens when you have reams of paperwork that need to move from one person to the next?

Back in the mid- to late-1980's, the commercial fax machine was hailed as a revolutionary invention (even though in its true sense, the fax was invented roughly 100 years prior). It provided a solution to high courier costs and eliminated some of the opportunity losses that came with delivery delays (no longer would a company have to wait days or weeks for a document to travel from one end of the continent to another -- they could receive it and execute it in minutes). The problem today with the fax machine is that it needs a hard telephone line. These lines come with brick and mortar offices. So unless someone waits next to the fax machine while you are out developing business relationships, an important document might sit for undisclosed periods of time before you even know it is there. This results in those same opportunity losses that the fax machine aimed to eliminate in the first place!

Finally, online fax services have evolved to the point where they offer real value, particularly for small businesses and entrepreneurs who need to be mobile. Thanks to high-speed internet (hardwired and mobile) and low hardware costs, online fax services can transmit and store large files for a relatively low cost. As a result, you can outsource this chore for as little as $10 USD per month.

Initially, it might seem that online fax services aren't such a big deal. After all, at $120 per year, you could buy over small fax machines (not including the monthly fee for the dedicated fax phone line). When you factor other fixed costs, the $10 per month seems rather cheap, especially when full documents get forwarded to your e-mail address, including your smart phone and handheld device. In other words, you can receives faxes anywhere you can connect to the internet.

Just as a hard-wired fax machine will transmit any document, online fax services can process more than 150 different document types including JPG files and MS Word documents. This allows you to work on faxes on virtually any machine. More importantly, online fax services are now as flexible as traditional fax machines, if not more so.

In essence, since the end user can operate from anywhere, there is less need for high-cost expenses like rent and reception. And since both sent and received files are imaged, their digital format can replace indirect costs such as on-site and off-site filing. And this trend is not specific to small businesses and entrepreneurs; most large now corporations incorporate document scanning technologies and digital storage.

The best service in terms of user-friendliness and efficiency that we have encountered is the online fax service by myFax. Their lowest-cost plan costs $10 US per month and allows a whopping 200 incoming and 100 outgoing faxes. Their priciest plan will run you $40 per month and allows 400 incoming and 400 outgoing faxes. Both plans come with free toll-free or local fax numbers and neither requires that you agree to a long-term commitment. Equally important is their website, which you can access at any time and is extremely easy to use. (This is important if you are unable to receive e-mail for some reason).

For small business owners and entrepreneurs seeking true mobility, fax services may have just been the last frontier. Through myFax, you can realize your freedom and start seeing savings immediately.

About the Author

See for yourself how Online Fax Services work. And don't forget to sign up for Quote Stork's FREE Build, Reduce, Grow Course. You can get a unique content version of this article from the Uber Article Directory.

Comments

No comments posted.

You do not have permission to comment. If you log in, you may be able to comment.