Cash Management Second, leasing also helps to even out your cash flow requirements and make them more predictable. Rather than trying to predict when you will need to meet an unexpected call on cash for future computer upgrades, leasing provides an affordable monthly cash requirement that can be budgeted as part of your firm s business plan. Equipment lease arrangements can be structured to minimize up front costs and spread the cost of the equipment over the length of the lease term - usually three to four years. Protecting Against Obsolescence Third, much of the high tech computer and telecommunications equipment we use in our offices has a somewhat limited useful life. We have found that the useful life for computer equipment in our office runs about three years - and if we are lucky, four years.
Computer technology changes rapidly.
The state of the art computer hardware that we bought less than three years ago won t adequately support the computer software we want to run in our practice today. Indeed, depending on what direction computer technology takes us, it may not even be compatible with what will be state of the art in three to four years. Many lease arrangements will allow you to upgrade at the end of each lease term, and some equipment leasing companies will even offer assistance in disposing of your obsolete equipment. Whenever we have an equipment upgrade in our office we attempt to find a charitable community organization that would accept our old equipment as a charitable donation. Finally, there may be some tax advantages to leasing.