10 Tips for Selecting an Internet Fax Service

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1fo0r SeleTctinigps
an Internet Fax Service
By Steve Adams
You've seen the studies and you've read the articles. You know that you can saveas much as 93% on the cost of adding fax capabilities and 89% of the monthlycost by using an Internet fax service instead of a fax machine or fax server. You'vealso bought in to the idea that it will help you improve privacy, simplify documentmanagement, and extend your faxing capabilities everywhere. In other words,you're ready to sign up.
But when you do a Google search on the term "Internet fax," you're suddenlybombarded by almost as many choices as you would have gotten if you used the term "Labrador Retriever." You know there must be differences between thevarious services, but how do you sort through them to know which one will workbest for you?
Following are 10 tips you can use to help you sort through the myriad of choicesin order to get the best combination of features and flexibility. While it may not beeverything you need to know, it should be enough to get you started.
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1 Make sure you can receive faxes either via e-mail or online.
Some services limit you to e-mail delivery only, which can be a problem for mobileworkers who are not connected to the office. If you're conducting business on theroad, whether it's selling houses or selling thousands of boxes of polypropylene to a major corporation, you'll want to be sure you can send and receive faxes anywhere there's an Internet connection - even if you can't access e-mail. Internetfaxing also provides the ability to preview faxes when you receive them, allowingyou to review the fax, forward a clean copy, and append a note if required - all withouthaving to print the document.
2 Watch out for hidden charges.
There's an old saying that the man who gives away his product for free knows itsvalue. While free services may be tempting, there are often hidden chargesinvolved, such as going over your limit of received faxes due to junk faxes fromcompanies to which the provider sold your number or charges for failed faxes.Charges for toll-free numbers can also become expensive if the service appends acharge to incoming faxes that use your 800 number - something that may not beimmediately apparent. Be sure you understand up-front what you're paying for,what the limitations are, and how you will be invoiced each month. The little feescan add up quickly, and negate any savings you were trying to achieve.
3 Check for the availability of different file formats.
Most Internet fax service providers will deliver the fax to you as a TIF file attachment.That works fine - unless you are trying to tie in to an existing document managementsystem that requires a different format. Your service should also be able to deliverdocuments in a range of other formats that work with common office tools, includingAdobe Acrobat (PDF). Having a wide selection of document formats not only worksbetter with the document management systems but also gives you a more universalability to share the document as needed.
4 Don't get tied down to one e-mail address.
One of the purposes of using Internet faxing is to provide you with flexibility. But ifyou can't easily switch the e-mail address as needed, or have the fax sent to multipleaddresses, you're losing out on the flexibility you were seeking. A good service willmake it easy to change or add multiple e-mail addresses online, so you can alwaysreceive that important fax when you need it.
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5 Research the company behind the service.
Setting up an Internet fax service is not very complicated, at least on a small scale.As a result, there are a number of providers that literally operate out of a basement intheir homes with just a handful of people. This sort of fly-by-night setup is not goodenough for your faxing needs, whether you do high volumes or just the occasiona... [download for more]