Once upon a time, sending a fax was the quickest way to transmit a document from one place to another. Now, in the era of email attachments and FTP servers, faxing isn't the only option available for speedy document delivery - but it's still a key part of business communications, especially for important legal documents requiring signatures, notary stamps or other official certification. In fact, for certain types of corporate transactions covered by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, proper legal compliance can be more easily accomplished with fax technology than other methods of electronic transmission.



While fax machines were once the only option for sending or receiving a fax, a number of advanced fax technologies are now available, and at extremely reasonable prices. For example, online fax services such as eFax, MyFax and CallWave allow you do handle all your faxing via email and secure websites. Incoming faxes will go straight to your email inbox, and outgoing faxes can be transmitted by email as well. An added benefit is the space you'll save without a bulky fax machine and its phone and power cords cluttering up your desktop.

Yet another advantage of online fax services is that they will assign you your own dedicated local or toll-free fax number, so you won't need to tie up your existing phone line when sending or receiving a fax. And because your faxes are stored on a secure website, you'll be able to log in and access them from any computer with an Internet connection. These types of web-based fax services are available on a monthly subscription plan, with the most basic options priced at around $10 per month.

Fax machines themselves have evolved considerably from the simple desktop devices of decades back. Manufacturers such as Brother, Canon, Panasonic and Sharp offer full-featured models with functions including copiers, printers and scanners in addition to fax capabilities. So you can now scan in a document or image, print out a copy for yourself, save the file to your computer, and then transmit it via fax, all with a single machine. While the first fax machines used thermal printing technology, many current models come with higher resolution inkjet and laser printers that produce clearer documents on standard printer paper.

Once you've decided on the fax system that works best for you, you'll have no trouble finding a great deal on a new or used fax machine at shopping sites like Amazon and eBay, or alternatively, signing up for an affordable online service such as eFax, MyFax and CallWave. Thanks to the Internet, finding the right fax solution for your office has never been easier!