Purchasing and Maintaining Warranties on your Office Equipment

Today’s business offices come complete with just about any possible new gadget you can think of.

 Not only are the gadgets and devices constantly changing, but the chances that something breaks down and has to be fixed increases as the number of items in the office expands.  What used to take only one phone call to fix the fax machine can now take four different calls to four different service people.  With seven or eight products, such as scanners, laptops, copier machines, and CRT screens, you never know when one of the products will break down and have to be replaced.  The question that every modern office has to ask is if it makes sense to purchase and maintain the warranties on the office equipment or is just best to buy new products when they come out on the market.

Comparing the overall costs
Buying office equipment warranties gives you a peace of mind.  If you’ve just spent thousands of dollars on new laptops and state-of-the-art printers, you want to know that you’re investment is a smart investment.  One way to protect your investment is to buy warranties on your office equipment.  Most warranties cost a fixed amount per year that covers both parts and labor.  It’s usually not more than a couple of hundred dollars on a device that costs a few thousand dollars or more.  To decide if it’s worth it or not to purchase the warranty, read the warranty’s fine print.  Find out if all the expensive parts are covered, as some warranties exclude some items.  If most or all of the parts are covered, then it can be worth it to purchase the warranty.  If some of the bigger parts are not covered, it just might be worth it to send out the equipment for service instead of purchasing a warranty.  

Grouping your warranties together
If you buy your office equipment at the same time and it’s the same make, you can sometimes group your warranties together for a better overall price.  For instance, if you purchase 10 desktop computers from the same vendor at the same time, you can probably group the warranties together for a good size discount, which means it will really pay off when a device breaks down.