20 Essential Office Supplies for Your Small Business in 2020
August 11, 2020
20 Essential Office Supplies for Your Small Business in 2020
No office is complete without office supplies. This is true for both promising small businesses and cozy home offices. Some basic supplies like paper, pens and scissors along with equipment like computers and coffee machines are commonly found in most offices. To get your daily business running without hassles, here’s a list of the most essential office supplies you need in 2020.
1. Writing Tools
Pens, Markers, Highlighters, Pencils, Sharpeners and Erasers
That covers your scribbling needs. Take notes, cancel them, highlight or erase them, pens and pencils are your best friends at the workplace. Markers are the go-to tools for scrawling on rough surfaces and writing boards. For correcting and forgetting notes, nothing works likes an eraser.
2. Grouping Tools
Stapler, Staples, Stapler Remover, Rubber Bands and Paper Clips
Grouping similar pages are frequent workplace tasks. Staplers, paper clips and rubber bands all serve the same purpose. Depends on how well and for how long you want those pages to stick together. Ungroup them with a staple remover if pinned.
3. Paper Shredder
Mostly used to destroy sensitive office documents, a shredder is a handy machine to get rid of waste paper. Unless you mean to hide behind them, a tall pile of useless pages is best fed to it. Keeps the desk clean and the trash bin full.
4. Planner
This is a must-have for any office. Keep track of all work-related deadlines, to-do lists and appointments. You cannot afford to run behind the schedule at work and there’s nothing like a professional planner to help you stay on top of your game.
5. Files and Folders
What would the world do without files and folders? Not just for safety, these are needed to organize and store important documents neatly. Files and folders go to the filing cabinet or shelves and help you de-clutter. They are easy to carry or pass around.
6. Computers – Desktop And Laptops
A no-brainer, this one. For working alone or teaming up, you can’t shut your eyes to computers. They take the manual out of labor and help streamline operations. Laptops are useful when you visit clients or work from your home office frequently.
6. Printers
Dozens of pages get printed every day. And with time, printers have evolved. From black and white to colored, some printing machines even come with scanning and copying features and function wirelessly.
7. Broadband and Wi-Fi
There’s no end to the collaboration levels you can scale, if the staff is well connected. A reliable internet and Wi-Fi is the starting point of such collaborations. These days, most offices have gone online and the opportunity to work from home has increased, bringing them to the forefront.
8. External Storage – HDD, USB
It is well known how internal storage of a computer system falls short. Documents, PPTs, and images keep piling up. Plus, you need backup. Hence investing in external storage devices makes sense. They are easily connected to many other devices and swiftly transfer data.
9. Cardboard Boxes
There’s no way you can walk past cardboard boxes and say no to it. Sturdy cartons are hard to find. They are useful storage boxes that can hold a lot of material and are easy to carry. One of these beside your desk can potentially carry your entire workplace possessions.
10. Envelopes
Envelopes do more than secure the contents. Professionally printed envelopes create a good impression in the minds of your clients and associates. They are heavily used for business correspondence even in the paperless digital age.
11. Calendar
An indispensable visual addition to your office, a printed calendar is usually placed on your desk or inside your drawer. Apart from the everyday reminders you can set on it, you can also give it away as a useful promotional gift. Of course, such a thing will have your brand name and logo on it.
12. Phone Systems
Every office has them in every department. Traditional landlines enable everyone to fulfill office communication needs without having to use an external phone network. This helps to get work done fast and accurately.
13. Glue and Tape
There are hundred reasons why glue and tape are office essentials, the least of which is sticking things together. From sealing envelops to pasting labels, work can slow down when these supplies are running low.
14. White board
A conference room with a missing white board? This is the stuff of nightmares. Investing in white boards is a useful idea if meetings are meant to be successful. They are generally used for drawing charts, diagrams, graphs or recording the highlights of the conference.
15. Scissors
Cut paper to size and open small boxes with a pair of sharp scissors. It is also used to open envelops, cut labels, tapes, and images.
16. Stamps
Stamps make official communication, official. What is a business mail without the stamp of authenticity? Stamps show approval and those with stock messages like ‘received’ or ‘paid’ bring clarity to transactions.
17. Desk organizer
Too much clutter to handle? And it is just getting getting worse? Time for a desk organizer. They help you save space and keep useless stuff away. You are still saving the important things like pens, markers and paper at your fingertips but the surface looks tidier. You don’t have to waste every waking minute searching for regular stuff.
18. Water cooler and cups
Like coffee machines, water coolers serve both business and pleasure. A thoughtful addition to any office space, these are the hubs of innovation as well as gossip.
19. Sticky Notes
One for quick, visual notification, a sticky note saves both space and time. Even if you make notes in your daily planner, sticky notes right before your keep the important things always within eyesight.
20. First-aid supplies
Any responsible workplace includes basic first-aid supplies in its budget. Tissue boxes are pretty handy when someone has a minor allergy or you want to wipe stains off your desk.
No matter the scenario, some office supplies never go out of style. They make it easier to complete daily tasks and improve performance.
