Choosing the Right Setup
Paper trays, finishing options, scanner speeds, inkjet vs laser, lease terms. There's a lot to think about. This page is here to help you make sense of it all, in plain English, so you pick the right machine for how you actually work.
Extra Paper Trays
Here's something that catches people out more than you'd think. You've got an A4 machine with one tray. Someone needs to print on A5, maybe compliment slips, or a smaller form. So they open the tray, swap the paper, adjust the guides, print their job, then swap it all back. Meanwhile, the next person hits print and gets a "paper mismatch" error because the tray's been changed.
It sounds trivial, but we've seen offices where this happens fifteen times a day. That's interruptions, jams, wasted paper, and a lot of grumbling. The fix is dead simple: add another tray.
The Pain Without It
- ✗ Constant paper swaps between A4 and A5
- ✗ "Paper mismatch" errors that stop the queue
- ✗ Jams from misaligned guides after rushing a swap
- ✗ Wasted paper from wrong-size prints nobody noticed
The Fix
- Dedicate Tray 1 to A4, Tray 2 to A5 (or letterhead)
- Print from your PC and it pulls from the right tray automatically
- No more swaps, no more mismatches, no more jams
- Adds roughly £10–20/month to a lease. Barely noticeable
Quick tip: if you print on headed paper, having a dedicated tray for it means you never need to load it manually for every letter. Just select "Tray 3" from the print menu and off it goes.
High-Capacity Paper Trays (2,500 Sheets)
A standard paper tray holds 500 sheets. That sounds fine, until you realise someone's loading paper five times a day. It's not just interruptions; it's also a chance for the tray to be loaded wrong, adjusted badly, or left open by mistake, which causes jams.
A high-capacity tray holds 2,500 sheets. That's five times more paper, which means you're loading it maybe once a day instead of five times. It sounds small, but across a team it adds up. Less interruption, fewer jams, and your staff spend less time thinking about paper and more time doing actual work.
High-volume offices, think legal firms, accountancies, or schools, see the biggest benefit. If you're printing 5,000 sheets a day and someone's loading trays constantly, a high-capacity tray effectively saves that person a task. It's roughly £15–25/month added to a lease, and most of the time it pays for itself in reduced downtime alone.
Standard 500-Sheet Tray
- ✗ Loading 5+ times per working day
- ✗ More chances for operator error (tray misaligned, paper creased)
- ✗ Jams caused by hasty reloading
- ✗ Constant interruptions to workflow
2,500-Sheet High-Capacity Tray
- Loading once a day (or every other day)
- Fewer operator errors and jams
- Smoother workflow with fewer interruptions
- Adds roughly £15–25/month to lease
Real-world tip: We've seen teams in busy offices say the high-capacity tray was the thing they missed most after switching machines. Small changes that remove friction add up fast.
Scanner Speed: Does It Actually Matter?
Short answer: it depends how much scanning you do. If you're scanning the odd document once a week, you won't notice the difference between 30 pages per minute and 120 pages per minute. But if you've got a member of staff scanning contracts, invoices, or patient records for an hour every morning, it's night and day.
We had a client in London, a legal firm with about 20 staff, whose office junior was spending two hours every morning scanning post and filing documents digitally. They were on a machine doing about 50 pages a minute through the document feeder. We moved them to a machine doing 120 originals per minute with single-pass duplex scanning (both sides in one go) and that two-hour job became a 40-minute job. That's an hour and twenty minutes of someone's day given back. Every single day.
The faster scanner costs more, obviously. But when you look at what you're paying someone per hour to stand there feeding documents, the numbers usually stack up. It's the same logic as finishing options: work out the cost of doing it slowly, then compare it to the cost of doing it fast.
Things to Ask Yourself
- How many pages does your team scan on a typical day?
- Are they scanning single-sided or double-sided originals?
- Does someone stand at the machine waiting, or can they walk away?
- Would a single-pass duplex scanner (both sides in one pass) cut the job in half?
Inkjet vs Laser: Which Is Right for You?
This used to be simple: inkjet for photos, laser for everything else. That's not the case any more. Epson's business inkjets have changed the equation, and we say that as a dealer who also sells laser machines from Sharp and Develop ineo. There's no agenda here. Just different tools for different jobs.
Epson Heat-Free Inkjet
- No fuser unit. That's the part in a laser that heats up to bond toner to paper. It draws a lot of power and eventually needs replacing (£200–400). Epson doesn't have one.
- Fewer moving parts. Less to go wrong, fewer engineer visits, less downtime.
- Up to 99% less waste compared to equivalent laser machines.
- First page out in seconds. No warm-up time because there's nothing to heat.
- Lower energy bills. Uses up to 85% less power than a comparable laser.
Best for:
Schools, healthcare, offices that care about running costs and sustainability. Great all-rounder if glossy print finish isn't critical.
Laser (Sharp / Develop ineo)
- Glossy, sharp finish. Toner bonds to paper with heat, giving a polished look that clients notice. Perfect for property brochures and marketing materials.
- Heavy-duty workhorse. Built for 50,000+ pages a month without breaking a sweat.
- Wide finishing options. Staple sorters, booklet makers, and tri-fold units are widely available.
- Proven technology. Laser's been around decades. It's reliable, predictable, and well-understood.
- Better on heavier stocks. If you're printing on 200gsm+ card or glossy photo paper, laser handles it more consistently.
Best for:
Estate agents, marketing-heavy businesses, construction firms printing CAD drawings, anyone producing client-facing glossy materials.
Honestly? We'll recommend whatever fits your workflow. If you're an estate agent printing 500 property brochures a week on glossy stock, we'll put you on a laser. If you're a school that cares about running costs and the planet, Epson's the answer. No bias, just what makes sense for you. Read more about why we rate Epson →
Finishing Options: The ROI Angle
Staple sorters, booklet makers, hole punches, tri-fold units. They sound like fancy extras. They're not. They're efficiency investments. The question to ask is simple: "How much is someone getting paid per hour to do this job by hand?" If the finishing option costs less than the labour, it's a no-brainer.
When You'd Use It
- •Collating reports (saves 2–3 minutes per document set)
- •Batch printing educational handouts
- •Creating proposal packs for clients
- •Preparing meeting agendas across departments
The Numbers
Someone spending 2 hours a day hand-collating at £20/hour = £40/day = £200/week = £10,400/year. A staple sorter adds roughly £30–50/month to your lease. Do the maths.
(These are rough guides based on £20/hour. Your actual cost will depend on your wage costs and volume.)
Best for:
Offices with 5+ people printing regularly, schools distributing handouts, corporate departments producing reports.
Lease Terms Explained
Most business copiers are leased rather than bought outright, and that's usually the sensible option. You spread the cost, you get maintenance and support bundled in, and you're not stuck with an ageing machine in five years' time. But lease terms can be confusing if nobody's explained them properly, so let's do that.
36
Months
Highest monthly cost but shortest commitment. Good if your business is growing fast or you think your needs might change soon. You'll get the latest machine sooner.
MOST COMMON
48
Months
The sweet spot for most businesses. Monthly payments are lower than 36 months, but you're not locked in for half a decade. This is what we recommend for most clients.
60
Months
Lowest monthly cost. Makes sense if you're watching the budget closely and don't mind a longer commitment. The machine might feel dated towards the end, but it'll still work fine.
Here's the honest bit: a longer lease means lower monthly payments, but you're locked in for longer. A 60-month lease on a machine that costs £100/month on 36 months might come down to £65/month on 60 months. That's a meaningful difference if you've got three or four machines across the business.
We don't push 60-month leases just to make the monthly number look attractive (some dealers do). We'll tell you which term actually makes sense for your situation. If you're a growing business that might need bigger kit in two years, a 36-month deal with a technology refresh clause is probably smarter than locking into 60 months on a machine you'll outgrow.
Most leases include maintenance and toner (except paper and staples), so your monthly cost is your total cost. No surprises. That's the whole point.
Why Nobody Tells You This Stuff
Most copier dealers just want to shift boxes. They'll show you the spec sheet, give you a price, and move on. They don't ask how your office actually works. They don't ask if someone's spending two hours a day scanning invoices, or if your receptionist is hand-folding 200 letters every Friday afternoon.
We ask. Not because we want to upsell you accessories, but because we've been doing this long enough to know that the right configuration saves you more money than the machine itself. A £30/month extra paper tray that stops a £20/hour employee wasting 20 minutes a day? That's not an upsell. That's common sense.
That's the difference between a dealer who sells copiers and a partner who actually thinks about your workflow. We'd rather set you up properly once than have you ringing us in six months saying "I wish I'd known about that."
Frequently Asked Questions
We get asked these questions all the time. No such thing as a daft question. These are things that actually matter for your decision.
Yes, most of the time. If you've already got a Develop ineo, Sharp, or Epson machine, we can add a high-capacity paper feed unit or a lower tray unit underneath the existing machine. It's a bolt-on, takes an engineer maybe 30 minutes. If you're three years into a five-year lease and you've realised you need more paper capacity, this is the way to do it.
The main thing to check is whether your current machine has a compatible module in the product line. We can check that in a phone call. It's not complicated. Some older machines (10+ years) might not have upgrades available, but honestly, if you're renting and you need an upgrade, that's often a good reason to get a newer machine anyway.
Most do, but not all. Entry-level machines (sub-£50/month) sometimes don't have the mechanical space to add a lower tray. Mid-range and high-end machines almost always do. The Develop ineo 250i, 251i, 300i and 301i all support high-capacity feed units. The Sharp BP-70 range supports them. Most Epson business models do too.
What matters is: if high-capacity paper capacity is important to you (and it should be if you're printing 5,000+ pages a month), make sure it's part of the spec when we're discussing which machine to put in. Don't pick the machine first and hope you can add it later. Some manufacturers make it intentionally difficult so they can charge more upfront, but that's not how we work. We'll be straight about what's compatible.
Yes. If you're in the middle of a lease and something's not working, we can usually add modules to your existing machine. Paper feed units, output units, finishing options: most of these are add-ons that don't affect your lease terms.
The cost gets added to your monthly bill (usually £10–30 depending on what you're adding), and it's spread across the remainder of your lease. So if you're two years into a five-year lease and you add a high-capacity tray, you're paying for it across the remaining three years, not all upfront.
If you're with another provider and they're saying "no, you can't add anything," that's rubbish. Any decent partner will work with you to improve your setup. If you want to move to us and fix it, we can do that too.
Usually between £15 and £25 per month, depending on the machine and whether it's a 2,500-sheet module or a full lower tray unit. If you're in a 60-month lease, that might break down to about 50p per day. If someone in your office is loading paper five times a day and it's taking them 10 minutes each time, that's nearly an hour a day. At £20/hour, you're spending £100 a week on paper loading alone. The high-capacity tray pays for itself in under a week.
We've had clients tell us the high-capacity tray was the thing they missed most when they eventually upgraded to a new machine. Small efficiency gains add up.
Mostly. Standard 80gsm copy paper? Absolutely. Headed paper? Yes. Coloured paper, slightly heavier stock (90–100gsm)? Usually fine. Very heavy card, glossy photo paper, or weird textures? That's where you might need to stick with a standard 500-sheet tray because high-capacity mechanisms sometimes struggle with finicky media.
The real-world solution is this: use the high-capacity tray for your standard work (A4 80gsm office paper), and keep a smaller tray loaded with whatever specialty stuff you need occasionally. That's exactly how a properly set-up office works. The high-capacity tray for the workhorse stuff, and smaller trays for everything else.
Basically nothing, practically speaking. Different manufacturers call them different things. A "paper feed cabinet" is usually taller, sits directly under the machine, and holds the mechanism that feeds paper up to the copier. A "lower tray unit" is a similar concept. It's a motorised tray that sits below the main tray and feeds paper up on demand.
Some hold 1,000 sheets, some 2,500, some can stack multiple units for even more capacity. When we're quoting you, we'll be specific about which one fits your machine and your volume. The naming is manufacturers' nonsense. What matters is the capacity and whether it works with your setup. That's where a proper conversation helps.
Yes. You can have a high-capacity paper tray feeding into a staple sorter, booklet maker, hole punch, or tri-fold unit. The high-capacity tray is about getting more paper into the machine; the finishing option is about what happens to the paper once it's printed. They're separate systems that work together.
So you might have a 2,500-sheet tray for your standard A4 work coming through a staple sorter, and a separate smaller tray with headed paper feeding directly to standard output (no sorting). It's flexibility. You get the efficiency of high-capacity supply for the bulk work, and manual control for anything special.
Probably yes, but it depends on how that volume is spread across the month and how many people are using the machine. If it's 500 pages a day across 20 working days, a 500-sheet tray runs out once per day. A 2,500-sheet tray runs out maybe once or twice a week. That's a significant difference.
But if you've got 10,000 pages in three intense days (maybe a bulk mail run, or lots of invoices going out mid-month), then a high-capacity tray becomes essential. You'd be loading multiple times a day with a standard tray. At high volumes, high-capacity often pays for itself in reduced labour time alone.
When we talk to you about your setup, we always ask how your volume breaks down across the month. That tells us whether high-capacity is a must-have or a nice-to-have.
Usually not directly. Trays and modules are proprietary. A Sharp BP-70 lower tray won't work on a Ricoh machine, and a Develop ineo feed cabinet won't work on a Xerox. Manufacturers build them as complete systems.
That said, if you're with a supplier who won't add a tray that's compatible with your machine, that's a red flag. A good partner (us included) will either add the right module for your machine, or recommend upgrading to a machine that does what you need.
If you're thinking about switching providers because your current one won't help, we can usually provide a compatible alternative that solves the problem. One phone call sorts it.
Then we look at the next option. If you're printing so much that even a 2,500-sheet tray isn't enough, you might need a second machine. Or you might need a different technology altogether: maybe smaller, faster machines distributed across the office instead of one big central workhorse. Maybe you need to look at PaperCut software to control who's printing what and cut waste at the source.
The point is: there's always a solution. It might not be a high-capacity tray. It might be a different machine, or a different approach. That's what happens when you actually talk to someone about your workflow. They can see the real problem and fix it, rather than just selling you the first thing that comes up.
Still unsure? These FAQs cover the most common questions, but every office is different. If you've got a specific scenario, send us a message or give us a call. We'll ask some proper questions and tell you what actually makes sense.
Not Sure What You Need?
Tell us how your office works and we'll tell you what setup makes sense. No jargon, no pressure, just straight advice. Usually within 24 hours.