[Note: I'm continuing a series on Saturdays called "The Toolbox." My intent is to highlight some of the software, products, and services that have become invaluable to me in my work. I think they will be helpful to you, too. I'd welcome your suggestions on what to review. You should know that these are not sponsored posts, and I'm not acting as an affiliate or receiving any funds for this series.]

Old habits die hard. People still like fax machines, particularly for things that require signatures (e.g. like contracts). So until fax machines drop off the face of the earth, I’m going to have to have some type of solution. As the tools already included in this series indicate, I’m committed to a paperless, virtual environment. Plus, I don’t have a landline or office space, so a traditional fax option isn’t available to me (not that I really want one anyway).

After doing a little comparison I settled on a fax service that I’ve been using for about 18 months: MyFax.com. There are other, more well-known names, but this one had three things I really liked:

  • It had an app for my iPhone. (Always a plus!)
  • I discovered rave reviews from people about the service through Google searches.
  • It was very reasonably priced.

For $10 a month I get:

  • A dedicated fax number in my area code.
  • A fax allowance (incoming and outgoing) to more than cover the activity level I have with the service.
  • The ability to send and receive faxes via e-mail or iPhone.

Here’s how it works:

  • I receive paper faxes people send from a traditional, paper-based fax machine as a PDF attachment to an e-mail.
  • I send faxes through e-mail that produces a paper fax for the person on the other end with the traditional, paper-based fax machine.
  • I have the service set to alert me via text message when the fax I send or receive does so successfully.

I don’t own a fax machine, yet I can send and receive faxes as if I did. The person on the other end never knows the difference. And I get to send and receive faxes whether I’m officing at home or traveling. Not a bad deal if you ask me.

Do you still use a traditional, paper-based fax machine with a dedicated phone line, or are you using a cloud-based fax service like MyFax.com?

 

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