You may not understand why providing meter readings to your copier vendor are so important but they are! There are various ways to retrieve them and many reasons as to why it’s important to ensure that the meter reading number are accurate and provided in a timely manner.
Contracts
Your contract will determine the intervals at which your meter readings are requested. Depending on how your contract is set up, meter readings will be requested monthly, quarterly, bi-annually (?) or annually. Contracts allot for a specific amount of copies, in a set timeframe, and by monitoring the meter reading, you and your vendor can make sure that you aren’t going over your copies and if you look like you may be getting close to going over, sometimes the contract can be adjusted to prevent overages from happening.
Supplies
The amount of toner your copier uses is directly affected by the amount of copies that you make, therefore meter readings helps to alert vendors (and you) to potential problems. For example, if you’re contracted for 30,000 copies in a quarter and your toner yields for 15,000 copies (per x percentage of coverage), you should only need two (2) toners per quarter. If you need more than two (2) toners in a quarter, then there’s an issue – either your coverage percentage is set too high, the meter reading isn’t correct, you have a faulty toner or there’s a backup toner sitting on a shelf that you’re unaware of.
Acquiring Meter Readings
Sending meter readings, to your vendor, doesn’t have to be a hassle! There are a few different ways that that they can be acquired – some being sent automatically!
Calling / emailing: Someone will call, or email you, right around the time your meter is due. There are some programs that send emails automatically and every couple of days, send a reminder again until the meters are received.
Automatic Sending: By programming the machines internal email capabilities, emails can be sent to your vendor, automatically, from the machine.
Automatic Monitoring: Managed print services programs, like PrintFleet, allow your vendor to remotely monitor one or more of your copier’s performance by installing a small, non-intrusive application in firmware of a print device or server.
