When it comes to setting up your small business, there are some pieces of office equipment that are basic to the functioning of your small business enterprise. This included:
-- phone
-- fax
-- copier.
When it comes to obtaining these items of equipment for your small business, you will need to decide first of all whether you should lease of purchase these items. Secondly, you will want to take a look at new versus refurbished products if you elect to purchase these equipment items as opposed to leasing them.
The Benefits of a Lease
If you are like many people involved in starting a new small business enterprise, you do not have a great deal of “extra dough” lying all about. Indeed, if you are like most responsible people starting a small business enterprise, you likely are operating on a pretty restrictive budget.
With this in mind, you may not have the capital necessary to invest in more high cost office equipment such as a phone system, fax machines and copiers. This particularly is the case if you require multiple pieces of equipment in each category.
For this reason, at least during the formative period of your small business enterprise, you might want to give serious consideration to leasing office equipment such as phones, fax machines, copiers and the like.
The Benefits of Purchasing Equipment
There is a downside to leasing equipment: Over time you may end up spending more on that equipment than you would have spent by buying the equipment in the first instance.
For this reason, if you do have capital available to buy phones, fax machines, copiers and similar types of equipment, you might want to give serious consideration to making such purchases.
With that noted, you will want to keep two factors in mind: First, make certain that you obtain a suitable extended warranty to cover any problems that you might encounter with the equipment over time. Second, you will want to consider purchasing a service contract to cover basic repairs associated with this equipment. In many instances, you can realize a significant savings over time by paying for a service contract.
New Versus Refurbished Office Equipment
Some people involved in establishing a small business enterprise have opted to purchase refurbished equipment items -- like phones, fax machines, copiers and other pieces of equipment that are necessary to the proper running of the 21st century business. You can save a great deal of money in many instances by purchasing refurbished equipment.
On the downside, you need to keep in mind that there generally will be no warranty associated with refurbished equipment. (Some vendors will offer a very, very limited 30-day warranty.) Therefore, you likely will need to be willing and able to replace the refurbished equipment if it ends up not functioning properly after you have installed it at your business.
