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Solving the Printing Dilemma in Coworking Spaces

Coworking spaces are popping up all over the globe. From Manchester to Morocco you can pull yourself up a chair and get working at a hot desk. The coworking space industry is predicted to continue growing rapidly as demand increases to have a flexible workspace.

There’s one teeny tiny thing that’s frustrating users, though – printing. Today, we’re going to solve that teeny tiny problem once and for all. But first, some background.

Coworking spaces are everywhere

According to coworker.com there are 1,794 different coworking spaces to choose from in the United States. Over 500 in the United Kingdom and 300 in Australia. There’s a large variety of spaces from casual drop-ins to long term and laid back to super corporate spaces.

Coworking spaces are all about collaboration, learning and sustainability. Not only do coworking spaces provide a place to work, they often offer perks with the space – they often have a community feeling with plenty of networking possibilities.

However, using a printer at the coworking space can be frustrating – scary, even. Something as simple as printing out meeting minutes could turn into a nightmare, for both the person printing and the people managing the printing system.

Solving printing in coworking spaces

Luckily our Coworking Software package is built for coworking environments. Here’s how it can help:

Cost Recovery

Managing printing is a must in these environments for cost recovery. There are a few different ways to charge people/businesses for the printing they do.

One example, you could allocate a quota per user/business and wrap the charge up with their monthly fees. If they reach their limit you can charge for their extra printing. You can easily turn this into a report for full visibility of all printing in your environment.

There’s also the option to integrate Key Digital’s Coworking Software with coworking space management software, to make billing users and receiving money even easier.

Integrations

Integrate our Coworking Software package with third party billing systems or payment gateways, such as PayPal.

For example, you may have heard of Nexudus, a common platform to manage coworking spaces. They’ve done the heavy lifting for their customers and built an integration to our Coworking Software. You can allow users to go into a negative balance on their account and it’ll pull that data to automate invoicing customers, not only printing but also renting the space. So no need to manually work out print costs.

Mobile and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) printing

Mobility Print – our BYOD solution – is a lifesaver in a coworking environment. You can print from whatever device you bring to the coworking space – smartphones, tablets, laptops, Chromebooks…you name it.

By following a few simple steps, users can quickly discover and print to any printer, without requiring the assistance of a techie. No finding drivers, no joining domains and the best part is each user will have to verify who they are before they can print – ensuring all printing is accurately tracked and charged, making reporting and cost recovery a breeze. Too easy.

Embedded solution and secure print release

Do you ever hit CTRL+P and sprint to the printer so no one sees what you’re printing? Those days are long gone with Key Digital’s Coworking Software and secure print release. You can securely release your print job when you’re standing at the printer via password, pin, or contactless card. This is key when sharing a building with other businesses.

The embedded solution also tracks copying jobs and unlocks the world of scanning. Easy scanning to email, folder or cloud storage and turning document scans into text-searchable and editable smart documents to retrieve information easier than ever.

For more information about how our Coworking Software can revolutionise your coworking space, call us on 01282 479466 or email info@key-digital.co.uk.