One aspect of running an office is managing the office supplies that you have on hand. You cannot do business if you do not have paper or toner cartridges for the copy machine. Although many offices are switching to using less paper, it is still important to properly manage the supplies in your office.

Take a Regular Inventory

One easy way to manage the supplies to take a regular inventory of what you currently have, and what you are running low on. This makes it easy to order new supplies before your current ones run out. You can set up a recurrent order for items you use on a regular basis, which will make it even easier to manage the supplies that you need.

Sign Out the Supplies

Another option to make managing office supplies simple is to have a sheet on the supply closet where employees initial next to the time they took out. You can create the same number of boxes on the sheet as you have in the closet. This will let you know at a glance when to order new supplies and what to order.

Organise the Supply Closet

it can be very frustrating to have a difficult time finding supplies when you know that you have them somewhere. Use a shelving system and label the shelves, so anyone can stock the supply closet without destroying the current organisational system. If the closet is not currently organised, then you should take a few hours to set up a system. The extra time you spend on this step will help you save money because you will not order supplies you already have. It will also prevent you from losing supplies.

Give One Person the Job

It can eliminate confusion if there is just one person in charge of ordering all of the supplies for your office. Generally this is the office manager or her assistant. This gives employees one point of contact if they need a specific item or if supplies are running low in the office. It also makes handling the invoicing and payments much easier.

Track the Supplies You Use

If one person is in charge of ordering it is easy to track the supplies you use the most. Then you can begin ordering in bulk to save money, and to cut back on the number times you need to order. This makes the entire process easier for the person in charge, and easier if you pass the duty onto someone else in the office.

These five simple steps will make it easier for you to manage your office supplies. It is important to have the supplies you need to run the office available at all times. They should be easy to access so that anyone can get them. If stealing is a problem you can put a lock on the supply closet door, but most offices do not need to deal with this problem. With a solid system in place you will no longer need to worry about the supplies for your office.

Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Cartridge World, providers of office supplies such as refill ink cartridges and toner cartridges.

Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Cartridge World (http://www.cartridgeworld.co.uk), providers of printer consumables such as refill ink cartridges and toner cartridges.

Author Bio: Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Cartridge World, providers of office supplies such as refill ink cartridges and toner cartridges.

Category: Advice
Keywords: office supplies, printer consumables, inkjet cartridges, toner cartridges