Alternatives to a fax machine

The introduction of the fax machine in the 1970's heralded the beginning of immediate information transfer. Important documents could be delivered across the world at previously unheard of speeds – all for the price of a phone call

Fax: a new lease of life

A surprising number of businesses still use faxes – for sending important documents, purchase orders and more. Nowadays though, instead of being a chirping machine in the corner of the office, fax is more often a function of your computer or mobile phone. It can travel with you in your pocket, anywhere in the world, and become an integral part of a unified messaging system.

This means you no longer need to buy an actual fax machine or have an extra telephone line installed. And there’s no need to print out faxes unnecessarily. In short, most of the costs of operating a fax machine have vanished, leaving only the cost of transmitting each fax.

How fax services work

There are two main alternatives to having an actual fax machine in your business:

• Subscription services, which use special software to send and receive faxes from and to your computer. You’re allocated a fax number for your company as usual, and any faxes sent to this number are forwarded to your computer by the fax service. Faxes appear in the software, where you can read, save or print each message.
• Hosted services, which link into your email system. They are sometimes called ‘fax to email’, and allow everyone in your business to send faxes. To send a fax with most systems, you simply compose an email as normal, then send it to a special address. The service converts your email to a fax and transmits it to the correct number. To receive faxes, you are again allocated one or more fax numbers. The service converts any faxes received into emails, and forwards them to an email address you specify.

Both types of service allow you to send faxes from your computer to a normal fax machine. Faxes sent to you normally arrive as a PDF document.

Fax service costs

Subscription fax services usually start around £5 per month. You might have to pay a small amount extra each time you send or receive a fax too, although many services include a certain number of faxes in the monthly cost.

A subscription service will become more expensive if you want more than one person in your company to be able to use it. You would typically pay that £5 charge per month, for each user in your business. So five users would cost £25 a month.

Hosted fax to email services often offer better value for money, especially if you want several people to be able to access the fax service. You may pay a subscription charge with a certain number of faxes included (good if you send and receive lots of faxes), or simply pay for each fax. Prices start at five pence per fax sent, and it’s often free to receive faxes.

More about business communications:

• Unified messaging systems
• Lower your phone bill with VoIP