Sunday, August 9, 2020

Is Your Copier Slowly Killing Your Employees?

Virtually every copier on the planet produces what are called Volatile Organic Compounds, and they can cause your workers to develop serious (and sometimes permanent) respiratory problems.

This article will help you identify the compounds your copier likely produces, and how to keep your workers safe from these compounds.

Which Compounds Does Your Copier Most Likely Produce?

The most common compound that copiers produce is ozone. Ozone is excellent for the atmosphere, but it’s not safe for humans for humans to breathe, especially daily.

The easiest way to figure out if your copier produces ozone is to ask your copier rep: “How much does a corona wire cost on this copier?” If the rep tells you a price, or that it’s included, your copier produces ozone.

Which Health Problems Can Arise From Regularly Breathing Ozone?

According to WebMD, these are the many health risks we face when breathing ozone daily:

  • Ozone can irritate and inflame the lungs, in the same way that sunburn can affect the skin.
  • Consistent ozone exposure can cause pain when taking a deep breath.
  • Daily ozone exposure over months or years can permanently damage the lungs.
  • You are far more vulnerable to pneumonia, bronchitis, aggravated asthma, and reduced lung capacity.

How Do You Prevent Ozone Produced By Your Copier From Damaging Your Workers’ Lungs?

When you have a copier in your workplace, you run these risks more as time goes on. However, you can mitigate these risks immediately by taking these quick measures.

Place your copier in a well-ventilated room, preferably far away from your employees’ workspaces.

You sacrifice some efficiency when you follow this safety measure. Still, whatever you lose from efficiency, you gain in not having to pay workers’ compensation for making your employees sit next to an ozone-spewing copier all day, every day.

Replace your ozone filters frequently.

If you place a copier next to a wall, you will most likely notice some black marks build up on that wall over time. That black stuff is ozone, and your employees breathe a little of it every time they use that copier. Replace your filters to keep your employees healthy.

Find a copier that doesn’t create ozone.

Applying this measure is a difficult task. Copiers that don’t produce ozone are rare, and you’ll pay a premium for it if you do locate one in the wild. However, following the two previous measures should be enough to keep your employees safe from the damage that repeated ozone exposure causes.

We live in a world where it appears that everything is out to kill us. Though your copier won’t strike you dead from using it only once, repeated usage can have adverse effects over the years. Follow the measures listed above, and you will help ensure that your workers stay healthy and productive for the foreseeable future.

The post Is Your Copier Slowly Killing Your Employees? appeared first on Copier Lease Center.



source https://www.copierleasecenter.com/is-your-copier-slowly-killing-your-employees/

Thursday, August 6, 2020

Do You Need a Copier that Does Tabloid Printing?

New Hampshire Copy Machine

Here are some simple facts to consider about A3 tabloid prints:

  1. Less than 3% of printed pages use tabloid sheets, though 24% of unit placements are tabloid capable.
  2. Industry averages say you’ll spend more than 40% over three years (close to $7,000) if you buy a tabloid copier.
  3. A tabloid copier will take up more space and use more power. It will also print slower than a standard A4 letter copier.

Copier companies are always trying to sell A3 tabloid copiers when typical A4 machines work fine for most companies.

What Is the Difference Between an A3 Tabloid Copier and an A4 Letter Copier?

An A3 tabloid copier will produce 11”x17” prints in size, whereas an A4 machine will do legal letter size of 8.5”x11”.

Tabloid copiers are built with more durable internals than an A4 copier. If you need to print 30,000 pages a month, a tabloid copier will be able to hand that kind of volume. However, most companies don’t produce the number of prints to justify the added expense of a tabloid copier.

Also, as we mentioned before, tabloid copiers are much larger than their letter copier counterparts. Sometimes people take a tabloid copier because the smaller variant “doesn’t look like a real copier,” even though that smaller copier would do the job just fine.

Let’s take a look at how much money using an A3 tabloid copier would cost compared to using an A4 letter copier.

Tabloid Copier with Print/Scan/Fax & Finisher

Average Monochrome costs (40 printed per minute) – $7,500

Average Maintenance Costs – $0.006 per print

Average Toner and Other Costs – $0.006 per print

With these numbers, a typical 48-month contract would look like this:

Equipment – $180 per month

Supplies and Maintenance – $120 per month

Total Cost – $300 per month all included ($0.03 per print)

A4 Copier with Print/Scan/Fax & Finisher

Average Monochrome costs (50 printed per minute) – $4,500

Average Maintenance Costs – $0.006 per print

Average Toner and Other Costs – $0.007 per print

With these numbers, a typical 48-month contract would look like this:

Equipment – $108 per month

Supplies and Maintenance – $132 per month

Total Cost – $240 per month all included ($0.024 per print)

Compared to buying an A4 letter copier, the A3 tabloid copier costs $2,880 more over 48 months, and it prints slower than its A4 counterpart.

If You Don’t Need Tabloid Prints, Buy an A4 Letter Copier Instead.

An A4 copier is 97% guaranteed to be all you need for your copying and printing needs. Take the smaller option, and you’ll save yourself thousands of dollars each year over a tabloid printer.

The post Do You Need a Copier that Does Tabloid Printing? appeared first on Copier Lease Center.



source https://www.copierleasecenter.com/do-you-need-a-copier-that-does-tabloid-printing/

Monday, August 3, 2020

The True Cost of “Free” Copier Upgrades

A fundamental misunderstanding exists that costs customers thousands of dollars. Their lease expires in a little more than a year, and their copier rep tells the customer that they’ll give them a free upgrade if they change now.

How Copier Reps Use the Word “Free” to Scam You Out of Thousands of Dollars

In the marketing world, there are few words more powerful than “free.” Unfortunately, copier reps use this word to scam customers out of their money.

Here is what’s happening behind the scenes of a “free” upgrade.”

A copier company needs sales, and the leasing companies want new contracts. With this mutual desire, a partnership is born to relieve you of your money.

The leasing company tells the copier company they will forgive a payment or two if they can get another long-term contract signed, as a promotion. Now and again, they will also defer payments.

A copier company will look at the equipment portion of the lease (which works out to half of the total) and see if they can wrap that price into the next contract and remain under retail price.

They go to the manufacturer and see what specials are happening. Instead of giving you the financial incentive the manufacturer provides them, they take this savings and use that to make the remainder of the payments, or close to it.

Why Is This Deal Terrible For Your Company?

You have three reasons why you shouldn’t take a “free” upgrade:

  1. If this discount was available for you, you could’ve had the copier for much less had you not had the current lease. Your long-term costs could’ve been much lower.
  2. This process is easier to wrap into a five-year lease, which is necessary to make the finances look right. The technology for copiers changes quickly, and you’ll want to upgrade in year four. The liabilities go up over time and had you rode out your original lease, you could’ve been paying a lot less per month for years.
  3. This deal gives all the leverage to the leasing company and the copier company. You eliminate your competition, which removes all incentive to provide you with a better deal on your next lease.

Save Money on Your Next Lease by Waiting Out Your Original Lease.

When your lease is up, you can start to shop around and see what your original leasing company’s competition has to offer. In the end, you may decide to renew your contract with your first leasing company, but at least you have the power to shop around and get a better deal for your next lease. Be patient, wait out your contract, and you will be in a far better position to negotiate a better deal.

The post The True Cost of “Free” Copier Upgrades appeared first on Copier Lease Center.



source https://www.copierleasecenter.com/the-true-cost-of-free-copier-upgrades/

Monday, July 13, 2020

How Color Coverage Affects Your Costs

How Does Color Coverage Affect Your Bottom Line?

Color coverage, in its most elementary form, is the percentage of the page covered in color. However, that description doesn’t tell the whole story.

We’ll go over how much color coverage you can have on a page, how it affects your bottom line, and how you can save thousands of dollars over your color copier’s life.

What Is the Real Maximum Color Coverage A Sheet Can Have?

When dealing with copiers and printers, the maximum coverage isn’t 100%; technically, it’s 380%.

There are four color cartridges: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Each cartridge can cover 95% of the page. If your page were completely black, you would have 95% coverage. However, if you were to have a page that’s all orange, you’d have a color coverage of 160%. This strange percentage occurs since your copier used a mix of yellow and magenta to create this color.

When you have a contract that allows for 20% coverage, this number doesn’t refer to 20% page coverage but 5% of each color on the page, making 20%.

How to Save Thousands of Dollars on Color Coverage in Four Steps

  1. If your copier contract has an upcharge provision, get rid of it. If you allow for this upcharge, make sure your historical average stays under 20% for color and 5% for black and white prints.
  2. Compile print files that your copier rep can run. If the rep looks at them and tells you a number without using a real analytics tool, your rep is scamming you, even if unintentionally. To know with any certainty what the color coverage is on a page, you need to use an analytics tool.
  3. Run your high coverage prints on machines that have no coverage restrictions. Run your low coverage prints on a cheaper printer.
  4. Keep in mind that if you use Tabloid sheets, they use twice as much toner as they’re double the size of regular letter sheets.

Follow this advice alone, and you can save up to thousands of dollars over the life of your color copier. Understanding color coverage will save you a lot of money in the long run.

The post How Color Coverage Affects Your Costs appeared first on Copier Lease Center.



source https://www.copierleasecenter.com/how-color-coverage-affects-your-costs/

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Save $815 on a Copier Lease With This Simple Trick

Leasing A Copier in 2020? Use This Trick to Save Around $815

What Is a Lease Rate Ladder?

As you’re looking at the copier lease rate, have you gotten a rate from the company? Do you understand what the 3, 4, or 5-year costs will be? If there are breakpoints in dollar amounts where you’ll get a better lease rate, are you close to this number?

For example:

You are looking at a $3,000 copier with an extra tray and installation.

If you were to buy this small copier for $3,001 for a 4-year lease, the monthly Fair Market Value cost would be approximately $74.

If you paid $2,999 for the same copier, the bank would charge $91 for a four year Fair Market Value lease.

That means you would pay an extra $815 for spending $2 less. This is the same timeframe and the same type of lease.

Why Does The Math Work Like This?

A little known secret about copier leases is that they have stepping mechanisms where you can get a dramatically lower monthly rate if you spend a specific dollar amount.

You will want to ask if there’s just one lease rate for any dollar amount or if the unit’s total cost varies. If the total cost of the unit has a factor, ask where these breakpoints are.

Sometimes, you may be close, within $200, of the next level. You could get install services for $200 and qualify for the next step on the pricing ladder, which will get you a much better rate.

The Copier Leasing World Doesn’t Always Make Sense, But Use This Trick to Make It Work To Your Advantage

These weird situations exist in the copier lease world. To make sure you’re not losing a bunch of money each month, you’ll need to ask questions about their leasing rate ladders.

When you take advantage of this little quirk, you can pay a couple of extra dollars up front to save yourself hundreds of dollars in the long run.

The post Save $815 on a Copier Lease With This Simple Trick appeared first on Copier Lease Center.



source https://www.copierleasecenter.com/save-815-on-a-copier-lease-with-this-simple-trick/

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

The Drama of a Copier Lease Return

Returning a Copier (And the Drama That Awaits You)

Your lease is finally over. At last, you can return your old copier to your leasing company and trade it out for one that isn’t falling apart.

In that moment of happiness, you get the bad news: You will be responsible for packaging the copier AND paying to ship it to some random warehouse. If there are any damages to the machine in transit, they will hold you responsible for those as well.

When you call your copier leasing company about this freight situation, they tell you it will cost $500 to pack it, and another $300 to ship it.

You explain to them that you don’t want to do that.

At this point, they tell you that they can waive both of these fees under one condition: You sign up for another five-year lease for your next copier.

Why This Deal Is A Bigger Scam Than Most People Realize

What happened here is that the lease company wanted another contract, and the lease contract wanted another sale. They know that the copier has to get sent back, so they hold you hostage by skyrocketing the packing and shipping fees.

This tactic robs you of your ability to shop around and find a better copier lease deal. These companies know that you don’t want to deal with the headache of packing and shipping the copier, and you’re willing to pay an inflated price on your next contract to avoid dealing with the shipping headache.

For the leasing company to pack the copier for you, it would cost them a total of $40 for labor and a wildly reduced rate to ship it to an asset disposal company to get rid of it once and for all.

How to Reduce Your Financial Exposure to This Scheme

You can do these three things to protect yourself from paying sky-high rates and hidden fees for getting rid of your old copier:

  1. Make sure you send a written letter to your leasing company 45-90 days in advance to let them know you intend to end your lease at the end of the leasing period.
  2. Remove all the consumables and package them separately. Take pictures of everything at every angle you can think of. These pictures prove you took every precaution possible to ensure the copier and all of its parts make it safely to their destination.
  3. As you put out the new copper to get a quote, let the dealers know you have (or will have) a packaged copier on site. Tell them you need to send it back and ask them what they can do to help with the freight costs.

You can return a copier if you don’t follow these steps, but you want to take every precaution possible to avoid getting conned by these companies looking to fleece you for every dollar they can get.

The post The Drama of a Copier Lease Return appeared first on Copier Lease Center.



source https://www.copierleasecenter.com/the-drama-of-a-copier-lease-return/

Friday, June 19, 2020

Should I Take the Free Color Device?

Is a “Free Color Upgrade” the Right Move for Your Business?

Copier companies are always inventing ways to extract more money from your wallet. One method they cooked up is to start selling you a black and white copier, then try to switch you over to a color copier at “no extra charge.”

Why Are The Copier Reps Making You This Offer?

With a color copier, with far more components than a black and white copier, is being sold to you at no extra charge, you need to ask why they’re offering you this tremendous sounding deal.

The copier reps are offering this deal to you for one primary reason: they want to own your color prints. To a copier company, color prints are where they make the real money from you.

Are there any reasons Why You Would Want to Take This “Free Color Upgrade” Deal?

With the aforementioned in mind, there may be some reasons why you might still want to consider taking the free color upgrade. Here are a few examples of why taking such an offer might benefit you.

  • You need a color printer anyhow, and this deal would save you money.
  • Your company would only use color in particular instances.
  • You know the difference between “black ink only” gray and composite gray
  • You are using a high-priced color printer to help with marketing

When Is Taking The Free Upgrade Offer a Bad Idea?

You will also encounter some instances where a free color upgrade would be a terrible idea across the board. Here are some of those instances:

  • When employees abuse the amount of color they use when they make prints
  • When you are running a color printer which costs $0.07 per copy or less
  • When you need a more reliable copier – Black and white copiers have three or four replaceable parts, where the average color copier has between ten to fifteen. Because of their more complex designs, color copiers will break down more often.
  • When you don’t need color printing in the first place

Only Take The Free Color Upgrade When You Know You’ll Need It.

Keep the costs in mind when you decide on getting a color copier. If you print 500 color pages a month (or 20 or so pages per day) that you’re not expecting, you will lose an extra $2,500 on a four-year copier lease.

You have to do what’s best for your company. Consider the long term impact of taking a “free color upgrade.”

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source https://www.copierleasecenter.com/should-i-take-the-free-color-device/