Here’s a quick and easy reminder of what you need to remember when buying office furniture online. From planning what you need to taking delivery, don’t fall foul and forget something important. Follow this simple list.

Here’s everything you need to take care of when purchasing new or refurbished furniture for your office. More explanation is detailed below the list, but you can get all the helpful information in one easy and free downloadable checklist which you can use to store all your important information.

• Get An Approved Budget
• Get Sign-Off
• Work Out What You Need
• Keep An Itemised List
• Compare Prices And Options
• Check Warranties
• Get Delivery And Installation Prices
• Arrange Delivery
• Arrange Removal
• Keep Everything Organised
• Use This Checklist

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Get An Approved Budget

Work with your accounts team or directors to work out a suitable budget agreed. Remember that the expecting to purchase the cheapest, budget items might not be suitable for your heavy use office, so can quickly turn into a false economy of savings.

If you would like some further reading about planning a large scale office furniture purchase, we have written a range of blogs on the following related topics:

• Essential Tips For Managing A Large Scale Furniture Purchase
• Why A Robust FF&E Plan Isn’t Just For Big Business
• Quick Guide For Creating An FF&E Policy For A Business
• How Often Do I Need To Purchase New Office Furniture?

 

Get Sign-Off

Don’t forget to get sign-off on not only your budget but also the final order. That way there can be no doubts from any other authorities in the business when the invoives start to arrive for your new furniture.

This also acts as a good chance to get a second opinion and logic check on what you are ordering.

 

Work Out What You Need

It’s most likely that you will need to spend some time working out exactly what you need. Canvassing your existing furniture is a good place to start.

Count up exact amounts of items and accessories, and then assess which items are actually getting their full use and which items are still in good condition. This should present some opportunities to remove unused and inefficient items from your office and – more importantly – avoid ordering items needlessly and wasting precious money.

 

Read 10 Tips For Saving Money When Buying Office Furniture

 

Keep An Itemised List

Another common error we have seen with office furniture orders is ordering the wrong items due to incorrect item codes being entered in an order or ordering the incorrect amount of certain products.

To find this out when the delivery arrives is a costly mistake.

Keep an itemised order list which can be double checked before ordering by you and a colleague and then once the order is scheduled for delivery, your order confirmation can be cross checked against it.

This paper trail will help minimise any errors in which items arrive.

 

Compare Prices And Options

Speak to your chosen supplier about the different items you intend on ordering. There may be a more budget friendly option available due to stock returns or offers from manufacturers. Also, your supplier will be able to advise on whether the items you are ordering are actually fit for purpose.

For example, who should have the most expensive ergonomic chair; the managing director who’s rarely in the office or the receptionist who is rarely away from her desk?

 

Check Warranties

We also advise speaking to your supplier about manufacturer and supplier warranties for your new office furniture. Especially if you chose to buy any refurbished or recycled furniture products.

There may be options to extend manufacturer warranties or certain terms which need to be met in order to activate warranties. These might be rare but is still worth checking that, if your own team installs the furniture, whether this invalidates any policies.

 

Get Delivery And Installation Prices

To avoid this scenario and also remove the risk of furniture being erected incorrectly, you should get a price for the supplier’s team installing and erecting your office furniture for you.

You should also get a clear price on delivery and add this into your calculations.

Just in case something goes wrong on the day, also get information and pricing if any deliveries need to be turned away on the day. There might be a range of things which could cause this – sudden deadline change on a project you are working on or a bout of illness, for example – and you could have to pay expensive refusal and storage charges from some suppliers.

But even modest charges will be unwelcome if they haven’t been budgeted for.

 

Arrange Delivery Date

Once you have received your order confirmation and cross checked it with what you are expecting, book in a fixed delivery date as soon as you can. This will give you a fixed date to get everything ready for in preparation for your new furniture arriving.

 

Arrange Removal

Which includes removing any existing furniture which is being replaced. Personal effects can be boxed and worked around, but it will speed things up if desks and others pieces of large furniture are either dismantled or made ready to be so by the team on the day.

Until the furniture can be removed you may need to find somewhere to store it too. And there may be charges incurred for removing existing furniture.

But don’t forget the option of selling your used office furniture. Your supplier may even be interested in buying it from you, depending on what condition it is in.

 

Keep Everything Organised

Key to making all of this as painless as possible is to simply be organised. We suggest keeping everything in a printed or digital file, where everything from budget sign off to invoice payment can be kept together, with your warranty documents aind instruction manuals.

 

Use This Checklist

So that is why we produced this electronic checklist which can be used to find out what you need in your office, an order list with room for specifics such as items codes, and prompts for all the key information such as purchase order numbers or credit card details.

Download it now and start the process of renewing your office furniture.