What Happens if I Want to Upgrade a Copier Lease Early?

Are you looking to upgrade a lease on a copier? There can be many reasons someone may be looking into what is involved in upgrading a copier lease. There could be mechanical challenges with the current copier or errors which don’t seem to be resolved. Another reason for wanting to upgrade a copier lease is that you are going paperless. Finally, some may want to upgrade a copier lease because they are going out of business or downsizing.

In this blog we’ll discuss what to do if you are in one of these situations, and what could be the best next steps for your company to consider going forward.

 

Dissatisfaction With an Error Prone Copier

If you are looking to upgrade a copier lease because of a broken or error-prone copier, the first and most obvious thing you can do is work with Novatech to have it fixed. Sometimes, copiers stay in an error-prone state because the current provider has no idea you are experiencing issues. With our factory trained reps, we can often help you get a copier fixed, which others struggle to get working well.

If you are having mechanical issues, your long-term costs are better served by getting the copier you have running well and not getting a new one because of your dissatisfaction.

We would suggest you place a ticket with any error codes, descriptions, pictures, or data that can help your provider quickly and finally get your copier working correctly for your company.  We would be happy to do our best to help you decide what makes the most sense for your situation.

 

Going Paperless

If you are going paperless, one thing to remember is you will need to scan, and if you are scanning, the copier you have could be a good device to use for scanning. We have yet to see many companies successfully go completely paperless, so we find the copier may be there for a while and the next time it is up for a lease, you can downsize to a smaller unit to reflect the new workload.

 

Going Out of Business or Downsizing

If you are going out of business, you will want to notify the leasing company of what is happening. You may also need to provide proof. The one “gotcha” here could be if you signed a personal guarantee (PG), which means you or whoever signed, would still be on the hook personally to make the copier payment. (This is more common for new companies).

If you are simply downsizing, you will normally get an option to move the copier to a higher use area but will probably not get the option of getting out of the copier lease, nor would this be an “upgrade.”

 

Copier Leases are Difficult to Terminate

If you are wondering why getting out of a copier lease is so tricky, it is because a copier lease is a financial contract. Like the mortgage on your house, there was a bank who put money to pay for the copier when you got it, and your lease payment represents their payback.

Simply canceling the lease would mean thousands of lost dollars for the bank and that would begin to be reflected in future leasing opportunities for all companies. The bank doesn’t want to lose money on your copier lease, so the contract is written to help them ensure that doesn’t happen, as much as possible.

If the leasing companies simply let people end a copier lease if they felt like it, they would no longer be able to offer copier leasing to any company because it would be too risky. When you sign the copier lease, you want to be sure, as much as possible, that you will use the copier for the entirety of the lease.

If you are dissatisfied with your current device or want to see what options exist to get out of your current lease and upgrade to another copier, we can help you with that. We work with leasing companies to do copier lease upgrades which would get rid of the current lease and move any remaining balance to the new lease.

Often, this can be done without a major difference in price per month, so it is worth exploring in cases where you are simply unhappy with your current copier.

If you would like to chat more about this topic, let us know and we would love to help your company make the best decision possible!

Check out our relevant articles on: Setting a Copier Budget