Business printer leasing on one agreement for every office

Sharp Copiers in Melbourne describes a standard printer lease as a monthly fee paid to a finance company.

Per the same page, a separate maintenance agreement with the dealer covers toner and parts.

Ask each supplier two questions.

1. Which company holds the lease, and which one fixes the printer?
2. What is still owed if the servicing stops part way through?

With GDS, one company holds the agreement, the repair requests and the invoice for every office.

Clauses to read before any office commits are listed in the lease clauses finance should check first.

How a lease per office compares with one business lease

No office has to break its current lease to come across.

Offices come across singly, spread over months, as their leases finish.

A group already holding several leases starts with the notice date on every lease it holds.

Ask each leasing company, in writing, for four things.

• The date the lease ends
• The notice period it needs
• Whether it rolls on by itself if nobody gives notice
• A payout, the sum to end its lease early, which only that company can quote

1. Mark each notice date in the calendar finance already uses.
2. Then send each office's end date with your enquiry.

The order offices move in is drawn on leases replaced office by office, earliest end date first.

Each printer goes on Starter, Professional or Enterprise, standard plans that can be tailored to your business.

Starter covers black and white pages only, while Professional and Enterprise add colour.

In every plan

The printer's toner and parts, plus labour and servicing.

Outside every plan

Paper and staples.

Pages over the allowance

Charged at the excess page rate your quote sets out. According to GDS, every location normally pays that same rate.

Optional extra

Staff can pick up prints at any site by card or code, on PaperCut software, at a cost priced in your quote.

See an example group with each office on its own plan.

A new office goes onto the same agreement, so that office needs no second contract.

The monthly figure changes to take in that office's printers, and its end date can hold or move later.

Before the new office opens, two steps.

1. That office can be priced on its own before it joins.
2. Billing is flexible, so tell us how finance wants the invoice set out.

Closing or moving a branch is covered in what changes when a company opens or closes a site.

1. The office rings the same number every other office uses.
2. GDS logs the fault and books an authorised dealer or the manufacturer to attend.
3. GDS follows it until the printer is fixed.

Capital city office

The technician generally arrives within 4 hours.

Regional office

Generally a visit on the next business day.

Neither time is a written term of the agreement.

No branch pays the dealer or agrees terms with one.

Toner is monitored at every printer, and GDS sends an update once a level runs low.

Servicing runs across Australia, through authorised dealers and manufacturers.

GDS's printer lease prices page puts every machine on a 36, 48 or 60 month term.

Upgrade with GDS

GDS covers the collection fee.

Move to another supplier

That supplier usually returns the printers.

If it does not

GDS collects them for a fee.

To plan the upgrade, name the office whose term ends first.

A paid option clears each printer's stored documents when the term finishes.

Per the same page, leaving early costs any outstanding amounts, the remaining payments and reasonable recovery costs.

A move of the whole group is planned in changing provider one office after another.