Fellow Surveyors, I want to hear what you think about this in our current economic climate. Do you believe you should rent the equipment you need, or purchase it outright? Tell me what you think?
(Note: I wrote a recent article for Kwipped regarding this, and gave my opinion on the question. http://goo.gl/bAXg0O)
Keith
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Replies
If mapping for example, you may not need buy some sophisticated equipment to operate. Just hire. It does not come frequently.
For engineering surveying, you needed buy equipment since you are going to use intensely and continuously for a particular engineering job.
In cadastre, you must have basic equipment because of frequency and less intensiveness. Jobs could be relatively small except it is Multipurpose Cadastre.
Where job is competitive and demands heavy equipment, hiring is the solution.
I would say it all depends on the person or company and the situation. Leasing equipment is a GREAT way to constantly have top of the line equipment while having a great tax write off. Renting is the perfect idea when you have a project that may require some equipment that you normally would not need on a regular basis. Of course owning your own equipment is nice so that once you are done paying for it, you are done paying for it and can still write off the depreciation. It all depends on your specific situation.
Thanks Daniel.
I did forget to mention in the article the advantage that you can expand and contract as needed for that big job that comes in without keeping all that expensive equipment around.
Paid for equipment is definitely a nice thing to have. It seemed to me that everytime I paid it off, it was worn out and I needed to replace it. (Again, surveyors aren't the best at taking care of the equipment. In my experience, I think that comes from the fact that THEY didn't buy it.)
I definitely agree that a GOOD accountant could help you with this decision and more. I've not had enough experiences with GOOD accountants. Maybe cause one of them was my ex, but I digress. Some accounting folks are good at taxes and others hate taxes. If they don't understand taxes, AND enjoy helping you SAVE taxes, then they're only a glorified bookkeeper. My opinion.
Thanks for your input on this.
Ter, That's definitely one advantage for renting. Keith