Mainly due to these uncertain economic times, more and more people are starting their own small businesses or operating a business from home. In most cases, your workplace has moved from a large, crowded office building to the comfort of your own home. And that, as they say, has made all the difference in the world.

However, along with this freedom come some major issues of how to keep in touch with the outside world on a limited budget. If you own your own business, you know that operating expenses have a bad habit of adding up quickly and taking away from your profit margin. A small business owner or anyone working from home needs to be able to control all of their operating expenses.

As mentioned above, one of the ongoing expenses will be communication costs. Phone bills, fax costs, Internet fees…if you’re not careful, these can all add up to a hefty monthly charge or expense. You need to find a solution that is cost effective while still giving you the freedom or convenience of operating that a small business can afford.

One solution many small business owners turn to is online faxing. Instead of operating the traditional fax machine, they are opting for a virtual fax machine or service, where all their faxing tasks are outsourced to an online fax service provider.

Online or Internet faxing is simply using your email program and web connection to send and receive all your faxes. Your chosen fax service provider acts as your intermediary to handle all your faxes for you and your faxes are sent as email attachments (Tiff or Pdf format).

Now, there are many benefits for a small business owner to going this route. First of all, online fax is truly mobile, you can send your faxes anywhere and anytime. You can send faxes from any mobile device, such as a cell phone, netbook, laptop, smartphone, or PDA. This mobility can give any home business or small business more freedom and scope.

Also, online faxing is much cheaper than using a regular fax machine, mainly because it’s web-based, so you don’t need an extra fax phone line, and since it’s paperless faxing, you don’t have the ongoing expenses or costs of inks, paper and tonics. Depending on how much faxing your business or home business requires…costs can be as low as $4-$5 per month, though the average monthly charge is around $8-$10.

To get an online fax, you need to register with one of the many Internet fax service providers, where you are given a local or toll-free fax number to use. You are also provided with an online interface or site where your faxes are stored. You can also log in to check and/or send your faxes from here. Please note that each of these different fax providers has different prices and rates; In addition, they also vary in the number of faxes you can send each month. The average is around 300, but shop around and you’ll find better deals.

If you’re on a strict budget and watching your pennies, you should be sure to check the overage fee charged to your faxes once you go over the monthly limit. The average here is around 10 cents, but shop around and you’ll find much better rates. This factor is very important if you send a lot of faxes each month. Actually if you are going to be sending a lot of faxes you should look into an unlimited fax plan, these will cost more but could save you money in the long run. Similarly, another option that many home businesses opt for is a complete PBX service where the fax is just one component, you get all your phone services, call forwarding, voicemail… handled through one convenient system. .

One of the best reasons for any small business or home office to use online faxing concerns scalability. Because it’s all computer and web-based, you can quickly scale up or down the number of fax lines you have since there’s no need to install additional hardware. For a small business, this is ideal because it gives you great flexibility and potential for growth. You can quickly tailor your fax services to meet the needs of your business.

One last point to mention about running a small business and faxing online is competitiveness. Having your business fully accessible 24/7 simply means your office or store is open 24/7. This can make your business more competitive in these uncertain economic times and is something to consider.

Overall, online faxing is the perfect solution for a small business owner. It’s cost-effective, convenient, portable, and available anywhere you have Internet access. It can really make any business or company more competitive in this dog eating dog business world. It is a solution that you should definitely consider for your business.