Buying a copier for your small or home office can be a real time saver and with the advent of the personal copier is now an affordable option for many small businesses. Many desktop copiers are also multifunction machines, giving you the option of combining copying, printing, and scanning functions in a single office machine. Here are the key buying factors to help you choose a copier for your office.

Black And White or Color Copier?

Color copying is slower and more expensive, but might be a feature you want your copier to have if you intend to produce promotional materials for your small business, such as brochures, or copy color photos.

Duplexing

Duplexing is the ability to print on both sides of the page. You'll be hard pressed to find this feature in many desktop copiers, but you may find it's worth paying a little more for a copier that will do this, because of the potential cost savings on paper.

Copier Paper Handling

As a business person, you have better things to do than refilling copier paper trays or feeding single sheets through a copier. Look for a copier with a paper capacity of at least 250 sheets - or more. You'll also definitely want a copier with an automatic document feeder that holds at least 30 sheets.

Copier Volume

Personal copiers aren't designed for heavy volume so check the copier's recommended monthly usage. If the copier uses a cartridge system, the average number of copies per cartridge yield will tell you how often the unit will need to be replaced. If your intended copying volume is above the recommended usage, you may be better off buying a larger copier designed to cope with heavy loads than buying a personal copier for your office.

Service contract

Always a good choice to have when you invest in a good copier, copiers require lot of maintenance and downtime cost money.