Do these before anything is disconnected
Record the final meter reading
Your closing invoice is built from the machine's final meter. If you do not have your own reading, you are accepting whatever number appears on the invoice. Read it off the machine, write it down, and photograph the screen.
Submit your final reading to us
Photograph the machine
All four sides, the glass, and the control panel. Include any scuffs, dents or marks that are already there. End of lease damage assessments are common, and they are very hard to dispute once the machine has left your building. Dated photographs end that conversation before it starts.
Get your return authorization
Many leasing companies will not accept a machine without a return authorization or RMA number issued first. A machine that arrives without one may not be recorded as returned, while the lease continues to bill.
Confirm the return address with the leasing company
This one catches people. Your leasing company and the manufacturer are not the same organization. Copiers get shipped to Xerox when they should have gone to the lessor's depot, arrive somewhere with no record of them, and as far as the lease is concerned they were never returned. Ask the leasing company, in writing, exactly where the machine goes.
Preparing the machine
- Empty every paper tray. Loose paper shifting during transit causes damage that gets billed back to you.
- Remove anything you added yourself, including USB drives, memory cards and any trays or cartridges you bought separately.
- Leave the leased accessories attached. Finishers, hole punches and feeders that arrived with the machine go back with it.
- Returns are commonly required to be palletized and shrink-wrapped. Original packaging is almost never available and is not usually expected.
- Production equipment should not be disconnected by office staff. It needs a technician.
Closing it out
- Remove the device from your network and delete its print queues, so nobody spends a week troubleshooting a printer that is no longer in the building.
- Keep the shipping receipt and tracking number until the leasing company confirms in writing that it arrived. Not over the phone. In writing.
- Check the final invoice against the meter reading you recorded.
What about the data on the machine?
Every copier that scans, copies or prints stores images on an internal drive. That drive goes back to the leasing company with the machine unless it has been properly cleared first. Do not remove the drive yourself, because the leasing company owns that hardware and removing it can trigger a damage or missing parts charge. The machine has a built in function for this, or a technician can do it and document it.
We are publishing per model instructions for this shortly. In the meantime, call us at (203) 777-0011 and we will tell you what your specific machine needs.
If you are an ABS LeaseFlex customer
None of the return paperwork above applies to you. There is no letter of intent, no notice window and no certified mail. When you are finished, you call or email us and we come and pick up the machine.