Costs & contracts
Keep colour where it helps your business. Reduce accidental colour jobs, unnecessary copies and reprints with a practical office printing review.
On this page
Use black-and-white for routine documents, choose colour deliberately and check a proof before printing a large batch. Then review your actual colour usage and service agreement together. The aim is to remove avoidable spending while keeping the quality your customers and staff need.
Keep colour where it earns its place
Colour has a purpose. A client presentation, training diagram or product sheet may be easier to understand and more useful in colour. Internal drafts, routine emails and many administrative documents often do not need it.
Agree a simple office rule: use colour when it helps the reader or represents the business, and black-and-white when it does the job just as well. Explain the reason to staff rather than creating a rule that makes everyday work harder.
A cost review should protect useful printing. Removing colour from everything can create poor results and extra work if someone has to print the document again.
Make the everyday settings work in your favour
Ask your IT administrator or support team to review the default print settings. A black-and-white default can help prevent routine documents from being sent as colour jobs unintentionally. Staff should still know how to choose colour when it is needed.
Check the actual driver and machine settings with a sample document. Do not assume that a mostly black document will always be billed as black-and-white: confirm how your equipment and agreement classify colour output.
Where supported, print-management tools can apply user rules and help monitor colour usage. Confirm compatibility, licence costs and administration before adding software. A small office may first benefit from clearer settings and habits.
Check one copy before printing the full batch
Before printing a proposal, training pack or set of brochures, open the preview and check the page range, orientation, paper size and number of copies. Print one complete proof when the job is important or unfamiliar.
Check that the colours are readable, the text is not cut off and the pages are in order. Then print the remaining copies. This takes a little time upfront but can avoid repeating an entire batch.
Keep a clearly named final document so staff are not printing an outdated version. For recurring jobs, save the approved settings or a short checklist that anyone in the team can follow.
Separate paper savings from printing charges
Double-sided printing can reduce the sheets of paper used for a document. It does not automatically halve the charge for printing it. Many service agreements count printed sides, so check your own agreement before calculating savings.
Likewise, putting several pages onto one side may reduce output, but the result must remain readable. It can work for an internal reference copy and be unsuitable for a customer document.
When reviewing costs, keep paper, printed-page charges and fixed monthly fees separate. This makes it easier to see what a settings change can affect and what remains part of the agreement.
Use your actual figures to choose the next step
Record colour and black-and-white meter readings over matching periods. Note unusually large jobs and compare those readings with the corresponding invoice. A busy presentation month should not be compared with a quiet month as if the work were identical.
Then ask where the colour pages went. Were they useful customer documents, routine internal work or avoidable reprints? This is more helpful than asking every department to cut printing by an arbitrary percentage.
If the equipment or service plan no longer suits your office, settings alone may not solve the problem. RAC’s free print cost assessment can review your current usage and charges alongside the work your team needs to produce. We can then explain suitable Toshiba equipment and service options. Any potential saving depends on your current setup and the proposed arrangement; there is no blanket percentage that fits every business.
Straightforward answers
Common questions
Will using less colour automatically reduce my whole rental bill?
Not necessarily. Colour-page charges may change with usage, while fixed fees or minimum billing can still apply. Check the full agreement, not only the colour rate.
Does double-sided printing count as one page or two?
It uses one sheet with two printed sides. How those sides are charged depends on your agreement; do not assume they count as a single billed page.
What should I send RAC for a print cost assessment?
Start with your machine model, recent usage and a current invoice or summary of your charges. Tell us what works well and what you would like to improve. We can help you identify any missing information.
Further reading
For the manufacturer’s overview, see Toshiba Tec: print-management options. Confirm local availability and the supported configuration for the specific model in your quote.
Talk to RAC Technologies
Find out where your printing budget is going
Ask RAC for a free print cost assessment. We will look at your current usage, equipment and charges, then explain practical options for your Gauteng business.