How to go paperless with faxing

Step 1: Take stock of how your office faxes

Before changing anything, spend a week noting who sends faxes, who receives them, roughly how many pages go each way and which documents are sensitive. This tells you how many users you need and which plan fits. For example, FaxToFax's Personal plan includes 200 pages a month (sent and received) for one user, while Business includes 500 pages and five users.

Step 3: Stop creating paper on the way out

Most outgoing faxes start as digital files, so there is no reason to print and scan them. Printing a document only to feed it through a machine also lowers the quality the recipient sees. Save the document as a PDF and attach it directly. On Windows, choose Microsoft Print to PDF in the print dialog; on a Mac, choose File, Print, then Save as PDF.

For short letters, type straight into FaxToFax's editor on your letterhead. If the same document goes to several offices, you can add up to 50 recipients to one fax, and each number is confirmed before sending. You can also schedule a fax up to 90 days ahead and cancel it before it goes.

Step 5: Set up records and retention

Going paperless only helps if you can find things later and delete what you should not keep.

• Use the time-stamped delivery receipt saved with each delivered fax as your proof of sending.
• Review the append-only audit log, which records every view, download and send, and export it as CSV for your records.
• Set retention controls so old faxes are purged automatically after the period your policy allows.
• Assign roles (owner, admin, member, viewer) so staff only have the access they need.