Time to put a squeeze on your budget? It can be hard to let go of the big things your company has gotten used to, but there are alternatives in the smaller things that can make a big difference in the long run and may save you from losing what is more precious. For example, consider these tips for saving money in your office management alone:

Recycled Toner Cartridges: Replacing the ink in your printers can be mightily expensive. Save by finding a supplier that will offer recycled or reused cartridges, which will be a savings in the long run.

Use Free Software: These days you can perform just about any task with a software that is free, but runs just as good as any commercialized counterpart. Take for example GIMP, the photo editing software, or even WordPress, a free, open-source software that you can build your site on. There’s also popular Skype for long distance calls and many Google tools such as Google docs and spreadsheets, which can export documents as pdf, Word and other formats.

Take on Interns: Often educational programs in colleges require at least a month-long internship for students who have been highly trained in specialized skills. The advantage is that they work for school credits, which costs you nothing. It also allows you to ‘test drive’ potential employees.

Save on Mail: When opting for a mail service, shipping earlier in the day or during low peaks in the season can get your letters and packages delivered quicker than you think. So be wise and don’t pay the extra for expedited service when you don’t need to.

Keep your Receipts: In many cases you can claim gas mileage and other expenses on your taxes at the end of the year, which can count for a lot of return. Every little bit counts – don’t ignore the small ones!

Shop Around: When you pay a monthly service for necessities such as phone lines, business Internet accounts, couriers, coffee vendors or web hosting, it’s easy to get comfortable with it too soon. Shop around and keep your eyes open for better rates. It can be worth the switch, and may even be worth the penalty fee to cancel if you save that much more. In some instances, you can take the competitor rate to your current provider to bargain a better deal.

Share: Using a shared office space allows you to save big when it comes to office expenses such as leasing a photocopier, using a fax machine, hiring a receptionist or even the little things like running the dishwasher or decorating. Business centres offering packaged offices can bundle these costs for you and reduce rates incredibly because you’d be sharing the office features with other companies (though your own suite stays private).

Outsource: When you have a job that needs to get done, consider outsourcing to a contract worker or company instead of hiring a person to do the job. Hiring involves extra expenses such as training, benefits, sick days and the risk that it may not work out. Outsourcing office administrative tasks and telephone answering allows you to only pay for what you use and not have an employee sitting idly when there isn’t enough work to do. Lookup ‘virtual office services’ in your local city to find a professional office admin service.

The above points may take a bit of time to implement, but generally they are not that hard and could have your company saving money in no time. While the savings may seem incremental at first, they will add up over the year and you will see a marked difference in your budget. Offices don’t have to be expensive, so don’t make them expensive. Look at other options to run your day to day office affairs.

Author Bio: Queenie Ormidale works with Central Park Business Centre, which has been offering Vancouver office space, administrative services and virtual offices to businesses since 1986. You can republish this article without this last sentence so long as you credit the author with a link to their website at www.executivesuite.ca

Category: Business Management
Keywords: office, save, money, tips, budget, options, shop, fee, free, alternatives, costs, business, risk