Your business is your livelihood.When your business is located in your home,it helps you save time in commuting in the morning and night.You have more quality time spent with family but at the same time, since your office is at home, you may have the tendency to wanting to work ALL THE TIME. Either way, it is crucial, when having to move your home office, that all important documents, paperwork, check, accounting files, computers, fax, printers etc.. Packing your home office is almost like a job for packing any other room in your home but a bit more tedious. You can pack your home office easily and efficiently. Here are our office moving packing tips.
Pack the Home Office – Preparation
You first need to get packing supplies. Lots of file boxes that you can get at your local Staples or Office Depot. For computers, printers etc.., it would be ideal if you kept the original boxes. If not, get yourself sturdy boxes that can hold heavy weight equipment. All these materials are available everywhere but you can also order it from a moving company prior to your moving day, especially if you will be using their moving services. They might give you the boxes at discount. But be aware of selecting the moving company. Before hiring, read the
moving companies reviews on some review websites such as yelp.com, bbb.org, moversfax.com.
Your office is filled with packing material so what do we do next? We pack. Start with emptying all file cabinets and put them in file boxes. Once everything is empty, go into packing all computers and printers and copier. Finally, the desk should be emptied from all its content for the movers to come and move the heavy furniture. Make sure to start to pack early. It’s crucial to have everything done in advance so you avoid shoving everything into boxes and to have difficult in re-organizing your office at the destination location. Always mark the boxes and file cabinets. Box 1 will go with File cabinet 1 and so on and so forth. You want to avoid spending too much time re-filing everything and not being productive with your actual business. You can also use the mover to do all of this but again, they do not know where or how you want things organized. Plus, it can cost a lot for a mover to pack you.
When packing yourself, make sure to prioritize the documentation based on what you may need immediately or what you may put in archive. It depends on the level of importance of the documents. Income tax returns should be kept for at least 7 years, but anything after that, IRS is not really interested in case of an audit. Any tax documents younger than 7 years should be kept in file cabinets just in case. All other paperwork would also have to be organized based in importance. All this packing may allow you to be better organized as well. It is possible that you may not like the way your existing organizational structure is operating. This will allow you to change it while packing. You may come up with other ideas. This entire move can be a big plus for you and your business. Welcome these changes with open arms.
Make sure to NEVER overload the boxes. Yes, i know, you want to save money. But just imagine that if you do decide to overload the boxes and it breaks in transit, the movers will have to pick the content of the broken box. What that means? More time to complete the move on YOUR dime. So you are not really saving any money overloading the boxes. You are actually wasting time and money. Keep this in mind. Be smart about all that.
Tips – Computers and electronics.
Always make sure to back up everything. My suggestion is to keep the external hard-drive with you and do not hand it to the mover. If you operate your business with laptop, bring it with you. If you have desktop, you can keep the CPU in your car and ship the rest in the moving truck. It’s easy to replace a monitor, but not easy to replace the content on the hard drive in case something happens. When packing electronics. do not go cheap on the packing supplies and bubble wrap. Use as much as you can to safely secure the monitors,. TV's etc.. It might cost you more to replace the broken item then the cost of materials. Again, cheap will end up being expensive for you.
Let everyone know
You need to make your clients/customers/patients know you are moving. Whoever may have a connection to you should know. Also, since you are moving, you may not be able to attend to your customer's needs. They need to know that it’s not about a lack of customer service, but because of you moving to another location. Make sure you are sending postcards or letter explaining what will happen in the next few days or weeks and that you are still available to answer to all their calls in case of need. Never stop your business because of the move. With today's technology, you can operate your business with a phone, tablet, laptop or anything else. Life goes on when you move and when well organized, you can eliminate all the stress and once arriving at your destination location, you can be immediately productive, build your business and prosper.
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