Rarely does equipment and technology, by itself, rise to the level of a solution. For that, you’ll often need to add services, maintenance contracts, and all those extra pieces that turn a piece of equipment and technology into something that solves a problem – or a whole nest of them.

No matter how many or big the problems you’re solving, “extra” expenses like those can significantly increase your total cost of ownership, or TCO, while simultaneously holding down your return on investment.

Then there are costs that are even easier to miss and harder to nail down, like the cost of tying up cash in a new solution instead of using it elsewhere in your business. And don’t forget just kicking the can down the road and waiting until the current equipment or technology breaks. That’s an approach favored by almost 75% of businesses, though it comes with a price tag of its own, because doing nothing is never without cost.

It’s a lot, figuring all that out. But there’s one thing that can help with every single issue mentioned above, and quite a few more: financing.

Let’s go through them one by one.

TCO Problem #1: Extras That Aren’t Extra (But Still Manage to Cost Extra)
Solutions these days are rarely confined to what you’ll find in a cardboard box or wooden crate. Software and services can be just as important as the equipment. Sometimes software and services ARE the solution, full stop. With the right financing, you can bundle the whole thing into one affordable payment each month without having to come up with cash up front. And that includes services across the lifespan of the equipment or technology, like maintenance.

TCO Problem #2: Cash Opportunity Costs
Cash has a really frustrating resistance to being spent more than once, as much as most of us would wish otherwise. If it’s over here, in the form of equipment and technology, it can’t also be over there, in, say, people to run the equipment. And if you finance the equipment or technology, but not the software and services that make it a real solution, you’re still freezing up cash you could use to drive growth elsewhere in your business. But 100% financing for your entire solution lets you get equipped now while saving cash for other needs.

TCO Problem #3: The Near-Irresistible Lure of Doing Nothing
There’s nothing like a complicated decision to make a human being give up and go do something else until the decision gets up and stomps off in a huff. But like the song says, if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. And depending on how many opportunities you missed out on and how much more you spent to keep old equipment and technology wheezing along, it may have cost you quite a bit. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses find themselves in that situation – paying more and more for equipment and technology that gives them less and less before finally breaking down for good, usually at the worst possible time, when the pickings for replacements are slim and discounts are nowhere to be found. But with a customizable finance plan featuring options like step payments while your equipment and technology ramps up to full capacity, the cost of doing something becomes far more manageable, the cost of doing nothing becomes far more avoidable, and future you will have one less beef with past you.