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Taming an escalating printing budget

Kids in front of high school

Cutting to the chase

Problem

Prevent budget blowout with a flexible, user-friendly tool


Solution

Track printing and set quotas with PaperCut MF to drive cost-cutting behavior


Outcome

Finally come under budget with significant savings and mindful printing

Built in 1927, St. Martin’s School (SM) is a co-educational comprehensive school catering to almost 1,100 students and hundreds of staff printing day in, day out – facilitated in no small part by Network Manager, Paul Williams.

Needless to say, SM gets through a lot of printing – something that shouldn’t pose any headaches with the right measures in place. But with annual budgets repeatedly blowing well before the end of the financial year, it was time for SM to get their printing under control.

PaperCut MF was simply the best option for us to fully manage printing and copying… An all-in-one, easy-to-use system."

- Paul Williams,

Network Manager at St. Martin's School

Problem

Prevent budget blowout with a flexible, user-friendly tool

Schools are used to facing all sorts of financial pressure, but the pressure can really hit when money starts drying up before the year is even finished.

“Our print management and maintenance budget is around £60,000 a year – contracts would last only 6-8 months,” says Paul. “We couldn’t really get clear visibility of expenditure and print volumes.”

On top of that, with 550 computers running on both Windows and macOS, Paul had to find a solution to not just cut costs and provide visibility on printing, but work seamlessly across multiple operating systems as well.

Solution

Track printing and set quotas with PaperCut MF to drive cost-cutting behavior

After some thorough research, Paul knew he’d come across his savior solution in PaperCut MF. “PaperCut MF was simply the best option for us to fully manage printing and copying. It seemed like an all-in-one, easy-to-use system,” he recalls.

SM started by using PaperCut MF during a single term to track spending and get a better read on usage patterns. With new insights in hand, data-proven budgets were then set for each department, and weekly quotas allocated to students.

Better yet, Paul’s compatibility worries never came to be: “PaperCut MF was the only system that could easily cope with our school network infrastructure.”

Outcome

Finally come under budget with significant savings and mindful printing

Since getting PaperCut MF, SM hasn’t had to up its printing budget. In fact, it’s coming in well under budget, allowing Paul to invest in new printing equipment. Students and staff have also adapted well to quotas, changing their behavior to think before they print.

Given the resounding success, Paul’s also looking to set up Secure Print Release – a PaperCut MF feature that guarantees jobs only release when authorized by the sender. No more sensitive documents out in the open, and no more forgotten jobs printed unnecessarily.

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