The trend toward increased network printing use has made print cost capturing crucial for professional services firms. The introduction of LAN connectable copiers (digital copiers) and higher throughput laser printers has meant that staff increasingly prints multiple sets of documents from their desktop rather than copying an original multiple times. In addition, the increased use of email to exchange documents has shifted the responsibility from the sender who used to print, copy and courier the document to the recipient who now does the printing. 

As a result, hardcopy production from prints is rapidly increasing. Many professional services firms already see their print volumes exceeding their copy volume. Unless firms are capturing cost for prints, nearly half their hardcopy production costs may be going out the door with no bill back.

Billback can help you recover these costs with our Network Print Control which provides:

• Efficient capture of all desktop print activity with minimal involvement from staff and fee-earners
• Highly configurable application can be customized to meet any firm’s specific requirements
• Robust and easy to deploy desktop application

For a print cost capture program to be successful, the time it takes to assign a valid job code to a print job must be minimal. Billback accomplishes these efficiencies with a robust architecture that allows for integration with a variety of document management solutions (DMS). Integration partners include Hummingbird’s DocsOpen, PowerDocs and DM5, Imanage, Media Manager, WorldDox, Groupwise & Masterplan.
At Billback, we also understand that not every office is the same.  That’s why the user interface allows for a variety of data entry fields that suit different work environments. Options include the following:

• Account code or cost center code
• Fee-earners initials. This is an optional validated field used to nominate the individual for whom the print job is being performed.
• Type of work. This is an optional field that can be used to nominate the nature of the project for invoice narration and/or charge rate purposes.
• Radio buttons. These buttons can be enabled and used for a variety purposes including establishing the charge rate. For example, the buttons can be assigned labels such as "Final", "Working Draft", "Internal Draft" for cost calculation purposes.
• Description. This field is optional or mandatory, depending upon configuration, and can be linked to the account code type. For example, firms may wish for a description of print jobs assigned to a non-chargeable code.
• In order to optimize the user interface for firms, all prompt or field name text can be customized to suit firm’s terminology.
• Displays the number of pages printed and billable ratio for the user.
• User profiles allow selection of the text display language appropriate for the individual or office.