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In evaluating the true cost we must look at the storage, lost documents, waste, and labor costs. Let’s make up a scenario here, storage for example; in an average office with 50 people on site and an average document flow of 200 or so file cabinets, taking up additional office space of 2400 sq ft (12′ x 12′) to hold what is flowing today. Those same documents could fit onto a server and reduce the costs significantly. You can also reduce the physical foot print along with costs. With real estate costing upwards of $2.00 sq ft, even in these tough times, the monthly savings would be $4800 a month or almost $58,000 a year. For many small to mid size companies this could be the cost of an additional employee, which might mean no reduction in their workforce.

Now let’s look at the cost with in the workforce. Let’s use the same office for this example. These same 50 people spend approximately 1.5 hours a day generating, filing, and accessing paper, this includes having to recreate documents that get misplaced as well. These employees earn an average of $30 an hour, with some executives earning significantly more. Then that means that they’re spending a combined total of 75 hours a day touching paper. This is costing the company $2,250 a day, $49,500 on the low end a month or almost $600,000 in salary a year to touch paper.

Beyond the labor cost and storage cost, cost per print needs to be looked as well. The average cost per print (CPP) is $0.015 it includes toner and minimal maintenance. This does not include the cost of printer or major repairs like drum kits etc. Using the average of 10,000 sheets per office worker, this office would be generating 42,000 documents a month or just over a half million sheets a paper a year. At $0.015 CPP they are spending $630.00 a month or $7500 a year.

Imagine if we could reduce these costs by half, this company would be saving $332,750 a year in real estate, salary, and CPP or $27,729.16 a month.

Taking these numbers into consideration, it is vitally important that companies begin to look at the cost of paper in their organizations and what they can do to reduce it. This can help bring budgets in line but to also assist our global situation as well.