If someone asked you to sign a document and fax it back to them, what would you do as a small business owner? Ask a friend who has a fax machine to do it for you? Go to a local printing shop? Buy your own fax machine?
If you’re wondering what you would do, you’re not alone. The good news is, you don’t have to take any drastic measures, thanks to online faxing.
Online faxing makes it easy for you to easily and quickly send and receive faxes over the internet on a PC, tablet, or smartphone. You don’t need access to a fax machine, making your work convenient and more efficient. Here’s how to send faxes without a fax machine:
Sign Up For An Online Faxing Service
Do some research to find the best online faxing services for small businesses in your industry. As eFax notes, first analyze your small business faxing needs, determine how many faxes you’ll be sending every month, compare the features offered, and check the pricing to ensure it fits your business needs and that you’re choosing the right one.
You’ll want to choose a premium online faxing service that enables you to easily send and receive faxes via email, a secure online portal, or a smartphone, and also sign, edit, and organized faxes digitally with the assurance of enhanced security for document storage. Once you’ve decided what service to work with, you can now sign up and log in.
Sending And Receiving Faxes
There are different ways you can send faxes using online fax services. Sending by email is, perhaps, one of the easiest options. It’s as simple as composing an email and addressing it to the recipient’s fax number, following the provided instructions, and including your subject, message, and attachments. Eventually, your fax is delivered to the recipient’s fax machine.
If you are using Gmail, you will need a google fax number that is linked to your Gmail account. As explained by the folks from Google Online Fax, this means that you have to set up a virtual fax service that will provide you with a Google fax number, and link it to your Gmail account. Once you have done that, you can easily fax a document directly from your Gmail account.
The other option is sending faxes through your registered online faxing account with your preferred service provider. Once logged in, you can manage your faxes, share large files, add an electronic signature to documents, and store faxes, all in one place. Your recipient receives your documents as easily as an email, streamlining your business operations.
When it comes to receiving faxes, you can easily receive documents to your online fax account portal using your assigned number, just like a regular inbox. Features offered will depend on the online fax service provider, so pick a robust online fax service with powerful capabilities that make sending and receiving faxes convenient and affordable for your small business.
Ensure Your Faxes Look Good
Before sending a fax, it’s standard practice to ensure that it fits your recipient in the best way possible. Are you using online fax as a promotional tool for your products or services? Are you using it to communicate with clients? Whatever your needs are, online faxing makes it easy for you to preview your faxes to ensure everything matches your intent and is ready to be sent.
Archive Your Faxes
To ensure easy management of your small business fax documents, you can easily archive or store your faxes and even categorize them in different ways like invoices, proposals, and contracts for easy record-keeping. Cloud storage solutions offer benefits, so check the options offered. Find out whether cloud storage is offered as part of the package or an additional fee.
Conclusion
Online faxing offers lots of flexibility and accessibility. You don’t need to have a fax machine to enjoy fax services. You only need internet access and can enjoy online faxing at a more affordable cost that suits your current business needs. It’s easy to manage, offers enhanced security, and is mobile-friendly, which suits small business owners.
Featured photo by Tim van der Kuip on Unsplash.