CimFAX A5 Paperless Fax Machine - Send from PC/Mobile Phone via Line 24/7

As a retired person, I deal at times with medical organizations and they can’t email scripts or other documents due to U.S. privacy regulations. I looked at traditional fax machines and I remember all of the paper wasted on spam. And, when you need to receive a fax, the paper would be gone due to prior faxes and spam. Enter Cimfax. It’s a server that sends and receives faxes electronically — no paper! I pride myself on being technically astute, but I think I’ve lost my edge given that I’m no longer challenged on a daily basis. Enter Anrey, who is patient and so pleasant. She helped me with a few issues that I should’ve known the answers to. She walked through the problem and was able to address the issue quickly. A year later, I thought there was a connectivity issue with the server, but in going through the process with Anrey on the phone, we realized it was my iPhone that caused the issue, as the iPad was able to connect seamlessly. Anrey is definitely an asset to Cimfax and I hope they recognize her value. Summary: Good product and good technical support.

I was concerned that the A5 might not be enough machine for our needs. I was concerned that this might not be a good solution because it seems like the whole tech industry has moved away from software-based fax on PCs (and for no apparent reason). I was mildly encouraged by the fact that this device's 4 and 5 star reviews come from folks who seem to be legitimately tech-savvy, while its 2 and 1 star reviews come from folks who obviously aren't. We were pretty desperate to achieve a paperless fax solution in one of our offices so I risked the money and time required to try this thing. Setup was ridiculously easy. I downloaded the CIMFax software from their website, not from the included CDROM. I made it grab an IP Address via DHCP. The software found it on the network automagically. It works great. The thing is as reliable, as a raw fax device, as the HP MFP devices we were looking to replace with a paperless solution. It works great. The software doesn't have to be running on the PC for faxes to be reliably received, it just has to be running to notify any terminal users of faxes received. It works great. The faxes come into the PC in PDF Format. The faxes sent out can be multiple documents glommed into one outgoing fax operation. It works great, recovering from voice calls and partial faxes or error-condition faxes where some problem occurred on the sender-side. This thing is just phenomenal.

I had a difficult time setting this up but poor guys from China at their midnight called me and set it up correctly. At it was easy. Also, Amazon by mistake had sent me an old device, and an old password was lodged in it. They fix it also. I am now Rock and Rolling! I get 2000 fax a month to this clinic and now everything is electronic under my supervision and if the fax is off the line all is sent then to my email. It can't be any better and I am very thankful to help my small business. Thank you all. Update: I am decreasing my 5 star to 1 on 10-5-22. Suddenly for no reason no more fax can be received or sent. All previous data is also erased for no reason. All contacts with customer service is chinese people who hang up the phone or only Chinese. This was a very poor investement. voice mail So, all my medical data is erased , fax is disabled in just 5 months or so of purchase without any help. Their troubleshooting page needs a computer hacker to find out what to do Lady called fixed it but again after an update to delete old faxes on 11-12-22 old faxes started to come. When I send it a fax caller ID is correct but fax content is something else. Multiple times reset it even with the new fax they sent me. Nothing works . Now it can't even receive or send a fax and is disabled. customer service doesn't respond anymore knowing they can't fix it. I am going to paper fax again. 8 months it worked for the money.

First and foremost: Impeccable and easy access to CUSTOMER SUPPORT. When you contact CimFAX customer support, you are bound to communicate with a true expert on your CimFAX, with clear directions and easy solutions. - What a relief to have this support. I have set up my CimFAX in two different US states now, with consistent and efficient support both times for easy solutions to any questions I had. Most recently, I had the opportunity to compare CimFAX with the online Smartfax service, and found CimFAX to be superior in two unquestionable ways: FIRST, hands-down, CimFAX provided real and quick customer support way beyond what Smartfax could deliver. SECOND, Smartfax couldn't handle sending a fax with many attachment pages: I got the message "can't fax." I am relieved I had just step up my CimFAX that same day: My CimFAX didn't even blink. It just did the job and it was a breeze. For many reasons I am relieved to transition from an online fax service with lacking customer support to my own very compact paperless faxmachine at home supported by impeccable and efficient customer service. Thank you, Anrey, and thank you CimFAX.

This device was employed at a medical practice that receives roughly around 2000- 3000 pages of faxes a month (more on this later). As a relatively new practice we tried to go digital as much as possible. This led us to first trying fax machines that used client software to export faxes from the machine to a file server (in this case Brother pc-fax rx). The problem with this is the client was unstable and would constantly crash, so after enduring that for a few years (made a script to restart the program when it crashed) we decided to move on. On to the next thing. Online fax companies, the worst decision for an (apparently) high volume fax business. We were pitched an unlimited plan from company V. Great! Sign us up! Unfortunately the salesperson neglected to mention in the fine print "unlimited" means below 500 faxes a month. Refer to the number I gave for faxes above. Overages, all the overages. Frantic searching for an alternative ensues. Enter Cimfax. Setup was honestly the worst part of the experience. Do yourself a favor and just have their customer service rep remote into your computer to get the IP address set up. Not sure why it isn't set to DHCP as default but it is what it is. I repeat, save yourself the aggravation and just have their rep remote in and configure it. Consider it part of the setup process if you're too arrogant to ask for help. Their rep was very nice and accommodating 10/10. Just do it. (I used Skype chat, remote in was done via TeamViewer) Once it was successfully connected to the network I was given instructions on how to do Fax to Email and Export Faxes to server (as PDF). I opted for sending faxes to our file server and sending to email if the file server is down (nice feature). I should mention there is a client side app but once the fax server is pointed to your file server the client does not need to be run (moot point if the computer you're running the client on is also your file server). Would have been great if it could integrate directly with online storage options but that does not seem to be an option at this point though I haven't played around with that yet. I currently have it set to export to a Google drive folder on a computer, not elegant but it works. We have also used the remote fax feature which does require the client to be installed. Works great once ports are forwarded. Zero issues. So as of this initial writing 8/21/17 it has been roughly a week since CimFAX was up and running. No issues (yet). It is quietly chugging away pushing faxes to where they need to be and in PDF format. As a good fax server should. No monthly fees, no overages, no gimmick, no incessantly crashing client. I didn't know a fax machine could cause me to feel relief but, for now, CimFAX has done so. TL:DR Pros: - Small - Works (for now) - PDF conversion - Remote feature - No monthly fees - Excellent customer service Cons - Initial setup Will update with any issues after a month.

My company bought this to replace a conventional fax machine that was in a back office and did not checked regularly. We were slightly hesitant based on some of the old reviews but the newer reviews were better. Here is what we found: The installation was quick and simple. The menus were easy to understand. The user guide was good – definitely better than stated in the reviews. We were able to receive faxes right away and were able to save copies of them to a server location right away. We do not intend to use the option to send faxes automatically to a printer, so we did not test that option. We had difficulty with setting up the “fax forward to email” because we needed to change two settings. The first: Under network settings, we had to change the default DNS server to match our internet service. The second: Under the user setup portion, there was a button to give permission to “fax forward to email”. That was not enabled when we did the “fax forward to email” setup. The device came with a paper that gave a specific email address to contact a specific customer support agent for setup issues. (There was also a phone number, but it was international to China.) When I contacted that address to figure out the fax forward issue, I was surprised at the great response time and at the fact that there were no language barriers. She solved the problem quickly and has followed up to ensure that I did not have any other issues. One point to note: The automatic OCR of incoming fax messages does not work if you have MS Office Suite 2016. The CimFAX software relies on a component of the older Office software that Microsoft discontinued at some point. I mentioned this to CimFAX for them to relay to their developers. It is no big deal to me, and hopefully they will remedy that in the future. I think this device is well worth the money and would recommend it. Documentation was decent (and seems to be improving). Customer service was great.

This stand alone Fax total solution is a must for Fax organization and send receive versatility. I have been in the non paper electronic fax mode for decades and this new server is what I would have custom built if given the option. The remote user capability totally puts it par with any paid fax service. When they incorporate direct mobile app there will be no reason not to be your own fax service. Set up is well covered in their online documentation, and best of all, immediate phone or type tech support is provided. I contacted tech support and you can tell they will do what is necessary to make sure their product works for you! Now, on another note, we have never before been able to send or receive faxes over our VOIP dedicated fax line 'Vonage'. When I installed this server at our shop where we have good high speed connection and set ECM (error correction mode) on it works flawlessly!! This is going to save us $55/month dropping our fax wire line. The fact that this is STAND ALONE takes the Windows or other PC unreliability issue off the table, and yet has total seamless interface software to manage on PC, and fully function remote access from anywhere makes this the "Best of both worlds". Drag and drop files and Cimfax print driver included.

This device works well when it works. Faxes are stored on a computer and you print only the pages you need. I have purchased three units for two medical offices. They worked well for close to a year, but then faxes were dropped or only first page would show. We replaced one with another unit since it wasn't under warranty. But after few months same issue happened. Support is through e-mail only. They responded within a day after the initial e-mail and we were told that it was a network issue or problems with the fax line. After following instructions and contacting phone company the issue persisted. However, multiple e-mails to the company have not been returned. It is impossible to troubleshoot the problem. This unit probably works for few faxes only, not for a busy medical office. None of the three units we have purchased lasted more than a year.

This little box is fantastic! It’s easy to set up and configure. Works perfect in my office. I love the right click to fax and auto export. Makes fax sending and archiving much easier. And it doesn’t need any more fax modem to work with. Better than those expensive fax software. I highly recommend this product!

Very easy to set up and works impressively well even with VOIP. Amazing customer service which is very responsive with instant messaging. Would recommend to any organizations that may require faxing which is compact and very efficient and paperless.