While talking to some Xerox people about their printers using Solid Ink technology, they kept telling me about PagePack. At first I thought that was a clever marketing term for a ream of paper, but it's really their way to help companies manage and monitor printing costs by charging by the produced page. That's all you pay: a price per page, and for paper, and the price includes all supplies and support. This program applies to only certain copiers and printers, so check the details. 

Saving money on printing, especially in color, means "cheap inkjet printer" to most employees. Managers know the "joy" of buying $75 worth of ink cartridges to resupply the $50 inkjet some genius purchased outside normal channels. I've heard of cheap inkjet printers costing thousands in supplies and especially support when an idiot vice president demands he (the idiot ones always seem to be male, don't they?) and his team have individual inkjet printers.

In today's streamlined and downsized world, tracking expenses for document preparation gets left behind, but the bills keep coming no matter what. If your company allocates overhead by department, you may be the one stuck tracking paper and inkjet cartridges delivered to a particular group. You got Cisco certified for that?

Better to work with a program where you can assign charges based on a produced page multiplied by a known amount. Read the printer or copier meter, whip out the calculator, and your budget chores are history.

A few other companies offer similar services, but Xerox claims they have fewer "gotchas" at the end of each accounting period. They also have the way cool Solid Ink printers that use ink blocks about the size of large Legos rather than toner or inkjet cartridges. You can see a demonstration I videod (see below).

This accounting method should catch on, since we're used to it for cell phones (base price plus so much for minutes and text messages over the limit) and cars (lease and pay extra per mile over the contracted number).

Just be sure to wait and begin accurately tracking your printing and copying costs after you print everyone's fantasy football rosters and team guidelines. Just in case, print "Company Team Building and Bonding Exercise" across the top of the pages, in red. What the idiot vice presidents don't know, won't hurt you.

Solid Ink
http://www.office.xerox.com/page/solidink/index/enus.html

Demo
http://www.podtech.net/home/author/jamesgaskin/