Before the Holidays: A Year-End Office Checklist

December 15th, 2026

Coworkers talk at a holiday office party beside a decorated Christmas tree.

It is the middle of December. The office party is this week, the cards are half addressed, and half the staff is already thinking about vacation. It is tempting to let everything else wait until January. Most of it can. A few things cannot, and those are the ones that make January feel long if you skip them.

This is not a big project. It is a short list. Most of it takes less time than addressing the cards.

The one deadline that does not move

December 31. If you are buying equipment this year and want it on this year's taxes, it has to be installed and working by then. Not ordered. Not delivered. Working. We wrote about how Section 179 works in plain English earlier this month, so here is only the part that matters today: two weeks is enough time for a copier or a laptop order if you start now. It is not enough if you wait until the 29th.

Install calendars fill up in December. Weather happens. If there is a machine you have been putting off, this is the week to make the call, even if the answer is "not this year."

Print the holiday things now, not on the 23rd

Cards, labels, envelopes, menus, gift tags, signs for the party, next year's desk calendars. Every one of those jobs lands on the same copier in the same two weeks. Check the paper and toner before the office empties out. A copier that runs out of toner at 4:30 on the day the cards have to go out is a special kind of office emergency, and it is avoidable.

If you are printing on card stock or labels, do a test sheet first. Thick paper has a way of finding the one thing that jams. And if you are low on anything, order it now rather than hoping the mailroom has a spare box. Copier supplies are usually a two-day problem until they are a two-week problem in late December.

The party has its own printing, too. A sign for the door, name tags, a menu, a few copies of the schedule, maybe a photo board for the person who is retiring. None of it is hard, but it all lands at once. Do the printing a day or two before the party, not the morning of. The copier is not a person, and it does not care that you are in a hurry.

Give the equipment a quiet week

The week between Christmas and New Year is the quietest one of the year in most offices. That makes it a good week for the copier to get some attention. A preventive maintenance visit, a good cleaning, a check on the trays and rollers, and a look at the scan destinations nobody has updated since the last person left.

While the technician is there, ask for the small stuff. Remove the people who no longer work there from the address book. Check the lease end dates. Confirm the machine is still on a service plan that matches how much the office actually prints. None of it is exciting. All of it is cheaper and calmer now than during the first busy week of January. If something does act up over the holidays, service and support is the place to start.

Gather the paper before it scatters

If you bought equipment this year, put the invoice, the serial numbers, the warranty information, and the install date in one folder. Take a photo of the serial plate on the back of the machine while you are at it. Your accountant will ask for proof of when it went into service, and in March nobody remembers where the paperwork went.

The same folder is a good home for lease agreements, service contracts, and anything that renews automatically in January. Ten minutes now saves an afternoon later.

Look at what broke this year

Every office has one machine that everyone complains about. The printer that jams on envelopes. The phone that drops calls in the conference room. The laptop that takes five minutes to wake up. The scanner that saves every file sideways. Write them down now, while the irritation is still fresh, and be specific about what it does. "The copier is bad" is hard to fix. "The copier jams every time we print labels" gives a technician somewhere to start.

January is the wrong time to discover that the copier is at the end of its life, or that the lease ends in March, or that the display in the lobby has been dark since Thanksgiving. A short list made in December becomes a budget conversation instead of an emergency purchase. That is also the difference between choosing equipment on your schedule and choosing it while standing in a hallway waiting for a repair.

Cancel what nobody uses

This is the least popular item on the list and the easiest one to finish. The extra software seats for people who left. The service contract on a machine that was replaced. The phone line that only gets robocalls. Renewals have a way of showing up in January, right when everyone is trying to remember how to work again. Ten minutes with last year's invoices is enough to spot the ones worth keeping.

While the invoices are out, check the renewal dates on the ones you do keep. A contract that renews quietly in February is easier to renegotiate in December than after the fact. Put a note on the calendar a month before each one. That small habit is worth more than a filing cabinet full of old paperwork.

A short list, in order

This week: decide on any year-end equipment purchase and get a real install date.
By December 19: order toner, paper, and card stock for holiday printing.
By December 22: book a service visit for the quiet week between the holidays.
Between Christmas and New Year: update the address book, gather receipts, and write down what broke.
First week of January: turn the list into a budget and a plan.

One last thing, for the person who handles this

In a lot of small offices, the year-end list lands on one person who already does three jobs. If that is you, the list is not meant to be finished in one afternoon. Pick the two items with a real deadline - the year-end purchase and the holiday printing supplies - and let the rest wait for the quiet week. The address book will survive until the 27th.

And if the office closes for the holidays, write down who to call before everyone leaves. A copier that dies on December 26 is a smaller problem when the number is already on the wall. That is not a technical detail. It is the difference between a calm week and a scavenger hunt.

The point of all this

The holidays are for people, not equipment. Do the small things now, and January starts with fewer surprises. The copier has toner, the service visit is already on the calendar, the receipts are in one folder, and the machine that everyone complains about is already on next year's list instead of being a surprise in the middle of a Monday.

Forward TS helps Milwaukee offices with the equipment side of that list - Sharp copiers, managed print services, and the managed IT services that keep the network behind it running. If you need something installed before the 31st, call now. If you just want the service visit booked for the quiet week, that works too. Contact us and we will find a time.

Happy holidays from all of us at Forward TS. We will see you in January, rested and ready.