When first starting to work from home the setup of your home office is important to the success of your new business. What is so important about where or how I work at home you may ask? Well if your workspace is unsuitable you will at best be working inefficiently which will lose you money and at worst could seriously and permanently damage your health.
A home office need not cost a lot of money but some expense may be necessary in order to get the best from it. I would recommend that you should have at least some the following items of equipment, your exact needs will vary with the nature of your business but these items would prove useful for any business.
1. Desk: a desk of some sort will be an essential, it is possible to make do with the dining room table but this would be an unsuitable solution in the long term. I would suggest purchasing a desk that will hold all your computer equipment, as well as providing a space for writing, many standard computer desks do not have sufficient space to allow you to use them as writing desks. Remember even though you are planning to business on the internet you will always have some paperwork to do so a good desk is a worthwhile investment.
2. Chair: a proper chair is a must for anyone planning on spending a lot of time sitting in front of a computer. The chair should give good support for the lower back, and be adjustable for height. If your budget will allow try to spend a little more on a chair that also allows the angle of the back and the angle of the seat to be adjusted as well. It cannot be stressed too highly how important a good chair is to your health, as a sufferer of back problems I have first hand knowledge of the difference a suitable chair makes in relieving and preventing back trouble.
3. Telephone: obviously a telephone will be a must for any business, but have you considered having a second line installed for business use? This can avoid problems when other household members wish to use the telephone when you are waiting to receive an important call, or need to make some calls. (teenage girls in particular will not thank you for restricting access to the telephone!). Regarding the actual telephone itself you might consider investing in one of the new telephones which can combine normal telephone calls with the ability to make use of VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) facilities. With technology advancing all of the time and with broadband access becoming available to more people VOIP systems can lead to major savings especially combined with a system like Skype. You can call other skype users over the Internet for free, and can call standard telephone numbers almost anywhere for greatly reduced costs. Although such telephones are currently relatively expensive they can more than pay for themselves in the long term.
4. Printer: a printer is a fairly essential piece of equipment, for speed and cost effectiveness a small laser printer would be the best choice. If you already have a printer, perhaps as part of a package from the purchase of a computer then by all means use that if you wish, however you should be aware that printing a page with a standard inkjet printer will cost significantly more per page than using a laser printer. Another option which might be considered is a combination printer, scanner,copier machine these can even be found incorporating a fax machine as well. Although these machines are great in the home (or office) when space is at a premium they have the disadvantage that a major fault can leave you without any of the services these machines provide. If this could prove a serious drawback in your business then stick to individual devices as it is highly unlikely that they would all go faulty at the same time.
5. Scanner: for some people a scanner will be an absolute necessity, but it is a useful piece of equipment in any office. A scanner has the advantage of being used as a replacement for a dedicated copier when used in conjunction with a PC and printer, it is also invaluable for transferring printed documents to your computer. OCR (Optical Character Recognition software will allow you to scan printed material and transform it into editable text which can be very useful in business. The scanner can of course be used for getting other material onto the computer such as photographs, drawings or any printed material (it is also possible to scan objects if they can be covered up with a light excluding cloth).
6. Storage: you will need storage for any materials you require for work documents, stationary etc. This could be a simple cupboard or a proper office filing cabinet, in any event it might be worth considering whether a lock might be required to restrict access to your files etc. Loss or theft of sensitive data could be serious for your business, and possibly for you as the data protection regulations in place in the UK and Europe have quite strict guidelines and penalties for anyone who holds personal data of other people in either printed or electronic form.
We will end this post now and in the next one I intend to look at the computer equipment you might need for your business, and will also take a closer look at European data protection laws and how they might impact on you.
Graham