The first fax ever was sent 170 years ago. Hard to believe that this technology is still around. However, it’s still valuable for your business. First, faxing has evolved over the years and is much more efficient and useful than it was a century-and-a-half ago. In 2021, a library’s worth of data can be shared through fax by using cloud servers and high speed internet.
Let’s delve a little deeper and find out what’s so important about faxing today.
Faxing is Still a Critical Tool for Your Business
Fax documents are essential for many businesses till this day. When something concerns legal matters like contracts, security and compliance is of the utmost importance. E-contracts work for certain business, but others don’t accept them as freely. Lawyers, legal firms, pharmacies, healthcare industries, and government agencies prefer genuine, physical proof.
Hence, when signing off on an order for a shipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, fax is more reliable. A typed signature just won’t do in this circumstance. Hence, fax remains extremely fast and reliable in these areas. The signature on fax is also considered extremely accurate and binding.
Other than legality and accuracy, faxing for your business is also important because of functionality. To keep up with competition, businesses have to have the functionality to communicate and collaborate with several third parties. It doesn’t matter where they’re based, or what they do.
You’ll be surprised to know that one of the countries where fax is still used is in Japan. While they’re mostly identified by their dependence on modern technology, they have a strong affinity for fax machines. Fax isn’t considered old school in Japan, in fact it’s the norm.
However, this doesn’t mean you have to use the antiquated fax machines used in the 80s. You can use 21st century equivalents which are faster, more secure, and much more reliable.
8 Benefits of Online Faxing Services
1. Compliance
Online faxing is much more secure and compliant with industrial and business regulations than regular fax. Most companies comply with regulations like HIPPA, MiFID II, and the GDPR. These evolve constantly and new requirements are added consistently. It’s just the age we live in.
Hence, online faxing services are a great investment since they can keep up with these rules and regulations. The updates and upgrades required are automatically initiated.
2. Security
Online faxing also provides much needed security updates that keep hackers from stealing your data. Since online faxing doesn’t work by printing documents in one go, it’s more secure than traditional faxing. Online faxing receives encrypted data during the transmission stage. Hence, it’s impossible to get valuable information while it’s being transmitted. Even if someone manages to intercept the data, it’ll be useless without the decryption key.
Finally, online faxing only allows you to access the records you need from a secure account. That way, you can have your own, private storage that is protected by a strong password or biometrics, etc. This reduces the chances of theft greatly.
3. Keeping Records
Virtual fax makes storage and archiving information extremely easy. It allows you to sort documents directly from the fax portal or the email. This gets rid of any requirements to handle mountains of physical documents. These can be damaged at any time. However, with an online record, you won’t lose track of anything sent to or sent from your office.
4. Eco-Friendliness
Since online faxing services employ digital means, they’re much more environmentally friendly than traditional faxing. Traditional faxing consumes over 200 billion pages in the US alone. Compared to that, online faxing can save around 10 billion pages of paper and over 1 million trees per year.
Also, this saves water and energy as well. So you’re doing the environmentally and financially sound thing.
5. Cost Efficiency
With an online faxing service, you won’t have to worry about maintaining the hardware or software of your faxing machines. In essence, this will save you a lot of money and reduce the annual capital expenses.
Also, you won’t have to be responsible for the ink, cartridges, and paper, and repairs that come with any piece of hardware. That’s a huge load off your shoulders and a huge chunk of money saved.
6. Convenience
Online faxing is more convenient than traditional systems. Every single incoming fax is available on a fax portal or an email account that you can access personally. That way, you don’t need to be at a single location to print a fax. You can simply access it on your own time and print it out when it’s convenient.
Online faxing also carries the advantage of sending one fax to multiple numbers simultaneously. Traditional faxing only allows sending one fax at a time to one number. This technology is thus not just cost efficient, but much more productive.
7. Digital Signatures
Electronic signatures are a great advantage when it comes to online faxing. It’s extremely beneficial for companies since they’re more legally binding than other forms of signing. Virtual fax services let you apply digital signatures to documents without having to print anything.
8. Scalability
Online faxing relies on cloud computing and cloud servers like any online service. Hence, these services offer scalable solutions. Without cloud computing, you can have as large a faxing operation as you need. It can adapt to the needs of your company and keep pace with your business’ expansion.
Since these services have a pay per use pricing model, you can be sure you’re not overpaying. Also, there are plans which can save you a lot of money depending on the length of the plan.
Great Online Faxing Services
For the best online faxing services, look no further than PhoneOne. Not only do they have great faxing services, but also voicemail to email, and LTE backup for remote access.