Every few years someone writes a piece declaring fax officially dead. And every year, the industries that actually use fax keep sending faxes.
Healthcare, legal, real estate, government, finance — fax is still a primary document transfer method in all of them. The reasons are practical: it's legally recognized, it creates a clear transmission record, and a lot of the regulatory frameworks these industries operate under were written when fax was the standard. Changing those frameworks is slow.
So fax isn't going away. But the machine probably should.
The problem with physical fax machines
A fax machine is a piece of hardware that requires a dedicated phone line, physical paper, toner, and someone physically present to deal with whatever comes out of it. When something goes wrong — and something always goes wrong — you're troubleshooting hardware.
More practically: if a fax comes in at 11pm, nobody sees it until someone walks in the next morning. If the machine is out of paper, the fax doesn't land. If someone sent a fax and your machine was busy, they'll call to tell you it didn't go through and ask you to stand by while they try again.
It's a lot of friction for a process that's supposed to be simple document transfer.
How eFax works
An eFax service gives you a fax number — which can be your existing fax number or a new one — that routes incoming faxes to email. When someone sends you a fax, it arrives as a PDF attachment in your inbox. You can view it on any device, forward it, store it, or print it if you need to.
Sending a fax works the same way in reverse: you upload a document through a web portal, enter the destination fax number, and send. The service handles the actual fax transmission on the back end.
To anyone sending or receiving faxes from you, nothing is different. Your fax number works the same way it always did.
What you actually gain
- Faxes arrive instantly, anywhere. They hit your email like any other message. No one needs to be in the office.
- No paper, no toner, no jammed machines. Every fax is a digital file from the moment it arrives.
- Easy to search and store. Faxes are just PDFs. File them wherever you file everything else.
- You can keep your existing number. Port it over so nothing changes on the other end.
- Lower cost. A dedicated fax line and machine running 24/7 costs more than an eFax service, and requires more maintenance.
Is there anything eFax doesn't handle well?
High-volume outbound faxing — hundreds of faxes a day — is a different use case and most standard eFax services aren't optimized for it. For typical business use, though, it handles everything fine.
Some older medical or legal software has fax built in and sends directly from the application. If you're in that situation, you'll want to check compatibility with your eFax provider before switching. Most support standard fax protocols and work fine, but it's worth verifying.
Do you still need a dedicated fax number?
You can often use your existing business phone number for fax as well as voice, depending on how your phone system is set up. Some businesses prefer a separate fax number to keep things clean — it's easy to tell by the number whether someone is calling or faxing. Either way works.
ShoutDial includes eFax as part of its cloud communications platform — inbound faxes go straight to your email, and outbound faxing is handled through the web portal. If you want to drop the machine without dropping fax capability, get in touch and we'll set it up.