Ways to Save Money for your Business

By: Karen Barnes

Comparison shopping on your business expenses—looking around at different vendors and sources who might offer a better value—should be done each and every time you plan to make a purchase for your business, no matter how big or small the item is.

Business expenses don't include just automobiles, gas, entertaining clients, utilities, and the usual things that come to mind with the phrase "business expense." Business expenses can also include your office supplies, equipment, and your travel expenses. There are also many more expenses that your business incurs every year for which comparison shopping might save you lots of money.

To find vendors for comparison shopping, you can start with your local yellow pages and "let your fingers do your shopping" with a few phone calls to inquire about pricing on a specific item. Discount warehouses, such as Costo, Sam's, or BestBuy are often good sources if you have one nearby.

Online, you can use a good search engine to enter the name of the item for which you're shopping. Your biggest problem will be to sort through all the results you get! You will eventually find a few reliable vendors to count on for good prices.

Products for which you should comparison shop:

1. Computer paper, card stock, ink cartridges
Many retailers with a physical store also have online sites that you can utilize. These companies will often have "specials" for their online customers to keep them coming back to their sites for repeat business. Using online comparison shopping, you can frequently find more advantages than with their store shopping. Online sites can—and most do—offer free shipping and handling, discounts, and much more for their online customers.

Ink refill kits for your printer can now be purchased at most office supply stores. The costs range from $19.95 to $24.99. Using these kits, you can refill an ink cartridge approximately three times versus purchasing new ink cartridges from $23.95 or higher, depending on your printer's cartridge type.

2. Upgrades on your computer software and hardware

When you purchase a computer or printer and register each of these products through the registration process, you will be asked if you would like to be notified of new products and offers. This is one of the best ways to get the best deals for your software and hardware upgrades from the companies from which you have purchased them. They will often offer better discounts to new and repeat customers than to new or unknown customers who walk into a retail store. The software companies online will often have special offers on their online products, especially new releases and upgrades.

3. Office furniture (your chairs, desks, filing cabinets, book cases, or shelving units)
Next to your electronic equipment, your office furniture is the next biggest purchase you will make when setting up your office. There are many ways to find office furniture without breaking the bank:

Furniture Consignment Stores—There are more of these stores doing business now than in the past years. The variety of furniture that they carry is wide-ranged, since they purchase from companies that have liquidated their outdated pieces or have gone out of business. With these types of buys, the consignment stores can purchase a bulk lot for a low price and then turn around and sell it for a lower price than you would have paid in another store.

Outlet Stores—Outlet stores (usually found at outlet malls in metropolitan areas) work on the same basis as consignment stores with the sales of their products except that they usually only carry one brand. While the prices will be a little more than a consignment shop, you will still find great deals at these stores.

Sales Events—Office furniture and supply stores will offer various sales throughout the year when they are expecting new shipments of products in for the new season.

Clearance areas in these stores will also provide extra savings on furniture as stores and manufacturers are making room for the new lines of furniture.

Electronic equipment (computers, PDA's, cell phones, printers, phones (land line), Internet service providers)—Several times during the year, many electronics companies will allow retailers to offer extra savings on select products. For instance, computer manufacturers will set up special deals with retailers to offer rebates for various amounts when you purchase a particular computer piece or a computer bundle. The "bundles" can consist of the monitor, tower, and printer at a significant savings over buying each item alone.

4. Phone service - Each individual phone service company has offers that can save you money each month. Call to ask what products and services they are offering, and don't be afraid to ask for a better price of a different combination of features than those they tell you about. These service providers are hungry for business and often willing to make a deal for your business.

5. Office supplies (paper, pencils, pens, paper clips, staplers, staples, organizers (desktop size), files, disk and CD holders)

Office supplies are the easiest to find the best savings on throughout the year. When there are sales on these supplies that you can not pass up, stock as much as your pocket book will allow. General office supplies will keep for quite some time, thus, saving you even a bigger bundle over time. Be sure to get catalogs for Quill  and Reliable or check their Websites regularly. These are commonly used office supply discounters.

6. Banking
When choosing a bank account for your small business, choose a bank that offers services and options that fit your situation. You can easily save $100 or more over the life of your account if you choose wisely:

Free Checking with no monthly account fees and check writing fees.

Free Checks—Initially at the time of opening your checking account or, preferably, for the life of your account.

Interest on your checking account—This service is usually only offered on accounts with minimum balances, so think carefully about your own situation. If you usually have less than $500 or $1,000 per month in your account, you are probably better off with free checking than with interest. Fees charged for falling below the minimum balance can quickly wipe out the advantage of any interest that might be paid.

Overdraft Protection—This option should be looked at closely, as some banks will charge a fee for you to this set up and some banks will allow you to link a savings account or line of credit to your checking account. Make sure you understand what you're getting, but with overdraft fees often $25 or more, it may still pay to have some kind of overdraft protection.

Replacement Checks—Once your checks start to get low and you need to reorder, look at the offers. You can find such companies in the Sunday Newspaper Sections. These companies have introductory offers when ordering your checks for the first time. Using these companies, you can order from two to five boxes for the cost of one box from your bank.

These are just a few ways to save on your business expenses from day to day, month to month and year to year. There are two significant times of the year that you can find the greatest deals on many products for your home office:

Tax Season—From January through April each year, many office supply stores have sales on many of the products that you will need for your office and business. During the tax season, you will be able to find quite a few companies and retail stores out-pricing each other to gain your business. Some stores will even "price match" their competitors' sales, providing they are like items. This can save you lots of time instead of running back and forth between stores.

Back to School—During the months of July and August, retailers start their "Back to School" sales. During these months, there are also great office specials. This is a great time to restock any of those highly used items that you think you might need in the next few months.

Now what do you do with all those leftover school supplies that you bought for the kids and college students when they started school? Pick out any of the items that you can use in your office and put them to work—most of them won't be able to be used the next year.

Another way to save is to check out the books that your college students purchase fortheir classes to see if they cover topics that would help you in your business. Some might help you become more proficient in certain software programs, such as Windows Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Take advantage of this knowledge source before your student needs to sell them back to the school bookstore before the next school term.
When you are searching product savings online, look for:

1. Rebate Offers
Rebates are cash-back offers earned from purchasing products. To use these offers, you will need to have a rebate form, dated sales receipt, and the bar codes from the packages in which the product came.

When a sales receipt is required, most companies will want the original sales receipt to be sent in with the form and bar codes. Copies occasionally can be used when there are more than one item associated with the rebate and forms have to be sent to different mailing addresses. If photocopies are not allowed, ask the cashier at the time of purchase, and they will print you another receipt from the cash register.

2. Percent-off Offers
Percent-off offers are one of the easiest offers to take advantage of, since they don't require extra effort on the buyer's part. Percent offers give the buyer a discount of a specific percent off of the retail or sticker price. Look for discount signs showing a percentage savings wherever you shop.

3. Free Shipping and Handling (S & H) Offers
Free shipping and handling offers are often found when ordering from catalogs and ordering online. They usually apply only if your total order exceeds a certain amount, but if you are close to this amount, it is often worthwhile to look for one or two more items that you need that can bring your total up to the required amount. The savings can really add up, especially when you consider the added convenience of having the products delivered right to your door by your friendly UPS man or postal delivery person.

4. Coupon Offers
Using coupons on selected items can add to your savings. Take the time to look through the coupon sections of your newspapers for coupons on products, such as tape, pencils, pens, etc. Then check with the sales ads in your paper to see if there are any sales on these particular items. Doing this can double your savings on these selected types of products. Beware of getting tempted to use a coupon to buy something that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Also avoid using coupons that require you to drive a long way to use the coupon. You can quickly use up your savings in gas and car expenses.

While this article is geared for home business owners, you can use the same tips in your daily shopping for any products and items that you purchase.

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