Documentation: what each line of a copier contract means
A copier or printer deal arrives as paperwork, and the words on it decide what the office pays. This page goes through the documents and the terms in the order a reader meets them, so that no line on a quote or lease comes as a surprise.
The paperwork a copier deal usually arrives in
A copier or printer deal can arrive as one document or as several. The usual split is a rental agreement, a lease and a service agreement. A rental is short and easy to cancel, but it costs more per month, and whether maintenance is included depends on the provider and may cost extra. A lease runs for a fixed term, and common terms are 36, 48 and 60 months, with a lower monthly payment and a commitment that lasts for the whole term. The service agreement covers the upkeep of the machine and, in many deals, the per-page charges, so it is often where those charges are written. Some providers fold all three into one signed packet, so read every page, not only the first.
Terms that move the total, in the order they appear
Quotes use two names for related charges. A click charge is the price of each page printed, and an overage charge is the price of each page beyond the number a plan includes, usually priced separately for black-and-white and for colour. A minimum is the least the office pays each month, whatever it prints.
The rate factor is how most lease payments are built. The payment is the equipment price times a lease rate factor, so a $15,000 machine at a 0.023 factor comes to $345 a month in a worked example from Novatech's explainer on copier lease rates. That source uses the example to show the formula, not as a market rate. Ask for the factor and the total paid over the term, since those two let quotes be compared.
A fair market value (FMV) lease keeps the monthly payment lower and leaves the end price open. At term end the office can return the machine, upgrade under a new agreement, or buy it at its then fair market value, which can be higher than expected. A $1 buyout carries a higher payment because the whole price is financed, and the office owns the machine for one dollar at the end. AOP Inc.'s explainer on the two notes that FMV is often treated as an operating lease and a $1 buyout as a capital lease, and advises confirming the treatment with a CPA. Many leases also auto-renew unless written notice arrives by a set deadline, so the notice date belongs on the calendar before signing. Supplies are the toner and other consumables, which a contract may include in the per-page charge or bill separately, and the quote should say which.
Check the paperwork in this order before signing
Start with the term, the notice date and the end. Find the length in months, then the date by which written notice must reach the provider if the office does not want the lease to renew. Next find the end-of-term option, whether it is a return, an upgrade or a buyout, and what the end price would be. Only then read the monthly payment, because it means little until the term and the end are known.
Move on to the per-page charges. Find the black-and-white and colour charge for each extra page, the number of pages included each month, and whether a minimum applies. Ask whether supplies sit inside the per-page charge or are billed on top, and whether maintenance is in the rate or extra. Last, ask for the rate factor and the total paid over the term, and keep the signed copy with the notice date written beside the term. The calculator on Tech Explained turns those figures into a cost per page.
What the paperwork cannot tell you about the machine
Four figures from the paperwork worth checking
The figures below come from the sources named under each one. Read them as ranges to test a quote against, not as prices. For what goes wrong after signing, the postmortems page takes the common failures in turn. For the drive at the end of a lease, the security page sets out what to ask, and for the rules that apply to scanned records, the compliance page does the same.