Exploring the Programmer's Nook

It is a fact that some office workers are not very prudent with their use of office materials. They waste a lot of paper, lose pencils and pens and they waste too much computer printer ink on copies riddled with errors.

A small business cannot afford to waste money on office paper and computer ink. As a business owner or manager you must keep count of the supplies used by everyone to keep track of your office budget.

Every penny counts these days. If the situation remains unchecked your office supplies might exceed its budget and account for a large overhead. Should you observe that that are frequent purchases made, expect your budget for office's needs to go way out of line and affect income or revenues.

Of course there are periods when the use of office paper, computer ink and photo paper may escalate, these are typically the times when production is low and you are sending out flyers and promotional materials. However, you should have controls set in place. Part of your strategy is to note which items are used frequently or keep tabs of the flow requests for supplies. You can determine which unit uses more paper or computer ink but do investigate how this is used. Perhaps people are not reusing used paper or taking up measures to eliminate wastage.

Shocking statistics reveal that one employee wastes at least 1.5 pounds of paper every day. If you have ten of them, imagine the gross wastage and that is money down the drain. To keep up with the demand for office paper, a lot of trees are cut down annually and the chain of events lead to higher carbon emissions, which is an environmental hazard.

To keep an eye on office supplies, sort the supplies. How often are these supplies requested? If your investigation results show that your supply officer makes frequent trips to the supplies store during the month in spite of your monthly purchases there is a leak somewhere. There could be reasons for frequent requests for stationeries and other essentials but are these being used the right way or do these land in the rubbish bin?

Stacks of paper, stationeries and pens should be stored out of sight. These are not used everyday but people seem to have this mania for overstocking these supplies and use them indiscriminately without thought of the expense that goes into purchasing these office necessities.

If office workers are made aware that they have to be careful with their supplies and cannot make further requests until the next requisition period, they might think twice about borrowing stuff from other units or end up having no supplies at all. Tough as it sounds, this strategy has worked for many.

Compile a list of supplies needed and compare prices. Do not limit your shopping to the usual stores, try other shops and check out the office supplies sold online. If you can save fifty pounds a month on these supplies, you can save six hundred pounds a year and this amount can be used for other important expenses. Remember the old adage 'waste not and want not'!

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