Everyone is interested in saving money. Businesses in today's economy are always looking for ways to cut costs and/or become more efficient. Many companies are interested in advancements that are environmentally friendly. Technology and specifically web development or custom programming offer today's businesses many alternatives to streamline their offices and reduce costs.

I just read this fabulous article about a middle school student's science fair project that showed how the government can save roughly $136 million dollars a year in printing costs! How may you ask? By simply changing the font they use for printed documents from Times New Roman to Century Gothic. His project started by showing how he could save his school $21,000 in printing costs and lead to the larger scale government printing costs.

Young Suvir Mirchandani can save your business money too. Think about it, does your firm still use printed documents? I realize that many things are tied to graphic design and branding, but what about standard issue forms? Does your company use printed vacation requests, still print emails or memos perhaps? Why not switch the font on those? How about typed client correspondence? Technology allows you to change fonts in most any program to one that may just be more cost effective.

Companies can save on printing costs in more than one way. How much paper does your office go thru? How many times are you changing office printer ink cartridges or printer toner? Do you have a large offsite printer budget? Have you considered utilizing web development or custom programming to streamline? Here are some examples of items you could use to cut costs.

1. Online forms. Doctors offices are using online forms to collect new patient information. By providing new patients with access codes or logins to their site these doctors are cutting costs on printed forms, pens, as well as staff time. If the forms are filled out online, the receptionist can process the patient through more efficiently. Online forms reduce the risk of human error and can be shared between doctors, nurses and insurance companies digitally.

2. Digital catalogs. Many companies now offer their entire product line online via their e-commerce system, or with "look books" on their websites. These digital catalogs cut down on printing costs, postage, paper, etc. They also allow for potential customers to instantly add an item they see in the digital catalog to their cart and purchase it on the spot.

3. Job Applications. Much like doctors offices and health forms, any company can offer online job applications. Again, this reduces paper and ink and information can be processed much quicker. Human resources can have online job applications linked to their internal HR systems allowing them to forward applicant information to the correct hiring department instantly.

4. Vacation requests. Why clutter up your desk or have massive file cabinets filled with vacation request forms? By having these forms available to your staff digitally you can again save money on printing supplies as well as on file cabinets and folders.

5. Order entry/inventory management. Streamline your ordering and inventory departments by having them linked together with your e-commerce system. Allow customers to use digital order forms. Make re-ordering fast selling, in demand items quicker by letting your inventory management system reorder for you when you reach a certain number in stock.

Now, these are just some items you can hire a programmer or developer to create for your firm to assist in cost savings and time management. Having digital items available frees up your staff's time to focus on other tasks. Sure, you have to pay upfront to have systems developed but think about the future saving from reduced ink, toner, paper, postage costs and labor. What do you think? Will you look into making a simple font change to save your company money? I know we will. I just love reading about students embracing technology and finding new ways for advancement, don't you?