PrinterMS or Excel for printer leasing?
For a handful of printers, Excel is enough and costs nothing. Once you manage dozens or hundreds, spreadsheets become slower and riskier: you enter meter readings manually, calculate fees with formulas and retype invoices at the end of every month. PrinterMS processes readings automatically and prepares the invoices, which you issue with one click. The question is where a spreadsheet starts costing more than it saves.
Excel is enough for a small fleet. With hundreds of printers, manual readings, formula errors and monthly retyping can consume the time and money that a dedicated system could save.
Updated: 7 July 2026
Choose PrinterMS if
Dozens or hundreds of leased printers, regular monthly invoicing, several users and any business where a mistyped meter reading has a real financial impact.
Excel is a better fit if
A handful of printers, simple billing managed by one person, and zero software cost matters more than speed.
PrinterMS vs Excel: point by point
| Criteria | PrinterMS | Excel |
|---|---|---|
| Recording meter readings | The agent reads printers over the network, or printers report by email; readings are assigned to the contract automatically | You type in readings for every printer |
| Fee calculation | Per-page prices, excess usage charges, minimums and monthly fees calculated automatically | Formulas you maintain yourself |
| Invoicing | One click to issue through Billingo or Számlázz.hu | You transfer the figures to your invoicing system manually |
| Risk of errors | Flags missing or suspicious readings | An incorrect cell reference can go unnoticed |
| Multiple users | Colleagues work together with access permissions | One file, with versioning and overwriting problems |
| History and audit trail | Changes can be traced for each printer | Overwritten information is lost |
| Business handover | Your successor signs in on day one and sees everything | Knowledge is scattered between your head and spreadsheets |
| Cost | Monthly subscription based on printer count | Free |
| Learning curve | A new interface to get used to | A tool everyone already knows |
Where does Excel become a bottleneck for printer leasing?
The issue is volume rather than formulas. A dozen printers are manageable in a spreadsheet. With hundreds, month-end becomes a separate shift: request every reading, type it in, calculate black-and-white and color charges, handle excess usage and minimums, then transfer everything to the invoicing system. Every step is manual, and every manual step can introduce a typo.
PrinterMS automates this chain: the agent collects meter readings automatically (or the printer reports by email), the system assigns them to the right contract, calculates the fee and issues the prepared line items with one click.
When is Excel genuinely enough?
For a few printers, infrequent invoicing and one person doing the work, Excel can be perfectly adequate and free. There is little point introducing software for a process that takes half an hour a month. A change starts paying off when printer numbers and monthly invoices make spreadsheet maintenance take more time than it saves, or when a mistyped reading costs money and damages customer trust.
What do you hand over if you sell the business?
Business handover is easy to overlook, yet most owners face it eventually. The trade is ageing, new entrants are scarce, and businesses pass to family members or are acquired. In Excel, your business knowledge lives in your head and across ten spreadsheets, which a buyer may price as a risk. In PrinterMS, every printer, contract, invoice and service record is in one system: your successor can sign in on day one and see it all. An organised business is easier to hand over and can be worth more.
The takeaway
Excel has limits as the fleet grows. PrinterMS removes slow, manual, error-prone work from your month: collecting readings, calculating charges and invoicing. As printer numbers grow, so does the hidden cost of spreadsheets, even though it never appears on an invoice. Use your own fleet size to estimate how much time you could save.
Related features
DCA monitoring
The agent reads meter readings, toner levels and error codes from networked printers in real time.
View detailsEmail meter readings
Where an agent cannot reach the printer, scheduled emails report its meter readings automatically.
View detailsPrinter fleet management
See every printer’s location, service history and return on investment in one live view.
View detailsContracts
Create contracts from templates and track them per printer. Update a price once to apply it to every linked contract.
View detailsFrequently asked questions
pays for itself.
A small price increase your customers will barely notice can cover the cost of the software. Try it with your own figures: if it does not convince you within 60 days, we will refund every fee.
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