Question: Can I use my company MFP (multi-functional printer) device to scan files and for document faxing?

Answer: Yes, you certainly can use your corporate MFP device in this way. Until a few years ago, copiers in the office were analog and scanning was done with dedicated scanners, and that was that. Of course, in the last 2-3 years all this has changed.

Your office copier is almost definitely digital these days and, most likely, supports copying digitally (i.e., scanning) to a directory. The location of each person’s scan directory can be set per copier or MFP. This means that instead of sending back a faxed document, e.g., signed contract, one can copy (i.e., scan) to a local directory and then attach the scanned document to an outgoing email. It is cleaner, you know the document is received by the other party (unlike a fax), and they in turn can forward to other people.

The typical MFP or digital copier device interacts with the network it’s connected to in at least two ways: i. type in client code and scan to email address, ii. type in client code and scan to client network directory. This MFP interaction is tricky to catch on the email level but quite easy for an IT Administrator to catch on a directory level. Each client user can have a hidden watched folder where the MFP actually sends the file to and then an output watched folder which is actually visible to the client. In this way, the MFP device can be used effectively to deliver, for example, searchable, web-optimized compressed PDF documents instead of TIFF files. There is a one-time configuration time sync on the part of the IT Administrator, but the result is a much more functional company MFP device.