Whether you buy, rent or lease a copier or printer depends upon several factors. Many of these will have to do with the tax or business advantages of leasing or renting with respect to available capital and depreciation. Leasing has a noticeably advan
tageous depreciation policy, but you will pay more over time than if you buy a machine outright. Leases are also desirable for those who look at these office products simply as a part of the cost of doing business, a factor which ensures they can presume upon those fees every month and also know that every 3-5 years they can upgrade their equipment to the latest model—and also make adjustments where needed. We also recommend staggering your leases in order to capitalize on needed upgrades on a more frequent and periodic nature. This is really helpful for offices where there are many machines running concurrently. In this case you will likely end up with a new and updated machine every year or so. It’s also important to understand the terms of your lease agreement, so that you know what happens at the end of the lease (whether you own the machine or are required to ship it back to a distributor or service center.)
What Are My Operating Costs?
When you lease a copier or MFP, the operating costs you will tend to incur will either be limited to paper and staples (in the case of a lease with a maintenance agreement) or everything from toner, to drums and anything that fails outside of the warranty (including any network support or configuration needs). With a maintenance agreemen
t your role remains to focus on your work, and everything else is covered by the service contract. And, what’s nice, is that most service contracts typically consist of a very small per-copy/print fee that covers toner, drums and all maintenance to install, replace and repair parts on your MFP or printer for the duration of the contract. If you want to handle all of those potential maintenance and supply needs yourself, your IT or maintenance department may be biting off more than it can chew, and you may incur more downtime as a result. Additionally, costs typically increase over time with a copier of MFP as parts wear out and more frequent maintenance is needed. Our recommendation is to plan to accompany your lease agreement with a maintenance contract for the same duration.
