Can You Upgrade a Leased Printer or Photocopier Mid-Contract?

Why year three is when this comes up

Most printer leases run 36 to 60 months, and businesses change faster than machines wear out.

A few years in, an office has usually taken on staff, changed what it prints, or discovered the printer it chose for occasional colour is now producing client-facing documents every week. A two-person practice that is now four, still running the one machine it leased at the start, feels that first. At the same time the hardware has moved on enough that a newer model does the work for a monthly figure close to what is already being paid. Those two things arriving together is why the industry treats the rollover as a cycle.

Find out the payout position across the whole term before you reach that point. The four structural parts of any agreement, including how it ends, are set out in printer lease contract terms.

How a mid-contract printer lease upgrade works

Four steps, in this order. Skipping the second is where most bad upgrades start. On the finance side this is sometimes called a lease upgrade or a refinance, because the remaining liability on the old lease is rolled into the new one.

Step two decides whether the replacement fits. An office that assumed it barely printed colour and finds a third of its volume is colour needs a different machine from the one it was about to sign for. That reasoning is set out in colour or monochrome.

What happens to your monthly payments

Ask for three figures on one page: the payout on the existing lease, the new monthly payments, and the new lease term. Without all three there is nothing to compare, and a new monthly figure on its own will always look better than it is.

The variables that move the new figure are the same ones that move any quote: machine count, volume, colour ratio, paper size, finishing, software, service level and term length. Those are set out in what a photocopier lease costs.

Penalties and fees for upgrading early

Usually not a penalty as such. The payout is the remaining payments on the lease, and some financiers add an administration fee for ending early. Read your current lease for any clause that restricts an early upgrade or asks for notice before you go looking.

What to change when you upgrade

An upgrade is the one moment in the term when the whole setup can be put right at once. Size it against what the office does now.

A3 or A4

An A4 multifunction printer handles everyday documents. An A3 machine adds larger formats for spreadsheets, plans and booklets, usually with more paper capacity and faster scanning. If A3 has turned out to matter, or never has, an upgrade is the time to change. Your meter reads show which way to go.

Secure print release

Jobs are held until the person who sent them identifies themselves at the machine with a card or PIN, so nothing sits in the output tray. Most current machines have secure or hold print built in, released with a PIN. Print management software such as PaperCut MF adds card release, follow-me printing and usage reporting, and is set up when the new printer goes in. The detail is in office print security.

Security features to prioritise

Encrypted storage, a data overwrite function, firmware integrity checks and user authentication on the machine, then secure release for the paper. The full list, and what each one does, is in what security features to look for in an office printer.

Scanning into your existing document storage

A current multifunction printer can scan straight to email or a network folder, and to the cloud storage your office already uses, so paper records land where people look for them. Cloud destinations may need an add-on such as uniFLOW Online or Cloud Connector. Ask for the connection to be set up as part of the installation.

Cloud print and the changeover

Cloud print management such as uniFLOW Online lets staff print to one queue instead of to a particular machine. When the new printer arrives, nobody's computer needs to be set up again, which takes most of the disruption out of the changeover.

The data on the old printer

A returned multifunction printer can hold copies of what it printed and scanned. When equipment comes back to us on an upgrade, its hard drive is written over several times to wipe the data and shadow data, and we provide a certificate on completion.

The usual trigger

Outgrowing the machine rarely announces itself

Volume creeps up, colour goes from occasional to constant, and nobody notices until the printer that used to be more than enough is running flat out. Meter reads show the change months before anyone feels it.

When to upgrade your printer lease

• The machine no longer fits the work. Volume has outgrown it, or colour has gone from occasional to constant, or A3 turned out to matter after all.
• Reliability has become a running cost. If the printer is down often enough that people work around it, the disruption is already costing more than the contract line suggests. In a one-machine office there is nothing to work around to. The costs that never appear on a quote are set out in the total cost of owning an office printer or photocopier.
• Something the office needs is missing. Secure print release, scanning into the document system, or per-client cost allocation the current setup cannot do.
• Several machines no longer match. Where an office runs a mix of brands and models, standardising at the upgrade is usually where the saving is.

When staying put is the right call

• You are close to term. Twelve months out, the payout usually outweighs the benefit. Wait, and plan the replacement properly.
• The machine fits and works. A newer model is not a reason on its own.
• The pitch is only a discount. If nobody has asked for your meter reads, the offer was built around their timing and says nothing about your usage.
• Nothing has changed. If the office prints what it printed three years ago, on a machine that has not missed a service, there is no problem to solve yet.

When your printer lease is ending: renew, return or upgrade

At the end of the term there are three paths. Return the machine if the need has gone. Extend or renew the current lease, which keeps the monthly figure familiar but keeps older technology in place. Or upgrade to a machine that fits what the office prints now. Check how much notice your lease needs before it ends, because an agreement that rolls over by default decides for you.

Start about six months out. That leaves time to read the meter history, size the replacement and line up the changeover so the new printer is installed as the old one goes, with no gap in between. If the lease runs a shorter term, start sooner.

How leasing and owning differ for tax

Lease payments are generally claimed as an operating expense as they are incurred. An owned machine is written off in full under the instant asset write-off if the business is eligible and it costs less than $20,000, pooled if it costs more, or otherwise depreciated over its effective life. Which suits your business is a question for your accountant. The structural difference is set out in how ATO depreciation and leasing compare.

Switching provider at the same time

An upgrade and a change of provider are separate decisions that often happen together, because the payout has to be dealt with either way.

We can pay out your existing contract. What that costs depends on your term remaining and your current monthly figure. Send both and the real numbers can be worked out, including the cases where the answer is to stay where you are until closer to term.

If you are also reconsidering the agreement type, the three structures work differently on cost and on who carries what. A standard lease holds the hardware finance and the service agreement apart, managed print services charge a fixed cost per page, and the Unlimited Print Plan is one flat monthly rate covering every page. The terms behind each sit on photocopier and printer leasing in Sydney.

Where several machines no longer match

111 machines, 36 models and five brands, down to four models

One aged care group ran 111 machines across 14 facilities, from five brands and 36 models, because each facility was deciding on its own. Moving them onto one plan with four standardised models cut their average monthly print spend by 26 per cent, around $66,000 a year. That work is written up under aged care.

Doing this in Sydney

The arithmetic of a payout is the same anywhere. What differs locally is who handles the changeover and what happens afterwards. A machine swap involves delivery, network setup, driver deployment and usually a short window where both devices are on the floor.

With us you get the same person every time. We have run Axia from Frenchs Forest since 1996 with our own technicians, who install the new printer and train your staff. When a line appears on a page afterwards, you ring the same person. Faults are fixed in hours, not days, with an average repair time of 3.2 hours. Emergency response across Sydney metro is under four hours, and we have over 90% customer retention. The hardware sits across the Canon range and the Sharp range.

Before signing a replacement agreement, note that Australian small businesses have statutory protection against unfair terms in standard form contracts, strengthened in November 2023. The ACCC publishes what that covers.

Frequently asked questions