The Added Benefits of Mobile Printing: Increased Cash Flow
Among the most important benefits of adding mobile printing to a mobile solution relates to a fundamental business parameter: cash flow. Appropriate cash flow is crucial to a company’s survival. Having ample cash on hand will ensure that creditors, employees and others can be paid on time. Excess cash can also be re-invested to expand or improve the business.
Many business leaders believe that “cash is king”. This is particularly true of smaller private businesses, where the potential for large sums of financing cash flows into the business are limited. In these situations, the efficient delivery of products or services and the timely collection of payment means everything.
The ways in which mobile printers can impact cash flow are as varied as the applications themselves. In many applications, such as field service or direct store delivery (DSD), the operational cash flow in the business can be improved in multiple ways:
- Cost of mobile thermal paper media is significantly less than the 8.5 x 11 forms normally associated with the standard office invoices.
- Leaving an invoice at the point of service or point of delivery with a mobile printer also accelerates cash flow.
- Taking advantage of a built-in magnetic card reader, an option available on all PrintekMobile printers, a business can virtually eliminate the A/R cycle altogether.
- The handy card swipe on the printer is a convenience to both the field worker and the customer, and also increases accuracy of card information input.
Public Safety applications, which usually involve issuing citations for parking infractions or moving violations, are also ripe for cash flow improvement by adding mobile printers to the process. In a way, these “business” improvements are very different than those described above, because no actual product is delivered or service rendered, and in most cases these applications are practiced by not-for-profit entities. However, this doesn’t make the financial improvement offered by mobile printing any less important; in fact, municipalities and universities rack up such significant income from violation fees that the efficiency of this process is a top priority among the managers of these institutions.
Studies have shown that using mobile citation printing, along with a mobile computing host and appropriate software, can improve an officer’s ticket-writing productivity by 30% or more. In addition to the increased revenue which results from the higher tickets-per-shift capability that mobile printing affords, thermal printed tickets are also less expensive than multi-part ticket forms, and along with the reduction in errors and elimination of clerical time to transcribe handwritten tickets, results in significant savings in direct expenses to the departments. And advanced PrintekMobile printer options which allow officers to automatically scan barcoded VIN plates and read magnetic drivers licenses, further enhance public safety applications and improve efficiency and cash flow.