A definition of office stationery

Office activities such as purchases, sales, payment of salaries, etc., may be recorded physically and/or electronically. Although electronic vouchers, invoices and other documents exist, paper is still widely used in offices, especially in small and medium-sized businesses. Sheets of paper are also used to record internal communication within an office facility, such as communicating terms and conditions to outsiders or requesting any material. Therefore, most office supplies are used in some way in relation to paper.

The list of such office supplies includes ballpoint pens, graphite pencils, highlighters, markers, erasers, crayons, ballpoint pens, sharpeners, blades, paper and tape cutters, masking tape, scissors, paper clips or clamps, chart pins, paper, files, folders, incoming and outgoing document trays, staples and staplers, printer ink, printer ribbon, toner, glue, sticky notes, note holders, etc. The list of office supplies mentioned above is certainly not exhaustive.

An essential feature of any office stationery is that it is consumed in a short time and cannot be reused. Therefore, a chalk or marker used in the conference room to explain and discuss certain strategies would also be stationery, even if it is not used on any paper. However, the blackboard on which something is written with a pen can be used for several years. Therefore, the blackboard cannot be classified as stationery.

This differentiation is, of course, for accounting purposes. There are accounting standards and guidelines for such classification of objects and consumables used in any office premises. It can be argued that refills can be used in ballpoint pens. Again, the standards would allow pens to be classified as office stationery primarily because of cost. Consumables used in offices are different from those used in factory facilities. While the consumables in the manufacturing unit are mixed or integrated into the product that the company sells, that direct consumption of office stationery does not exist. But in the case of companies that offer services, the office material is equivalent to the consumables of the manufacturing company.

Over the years, the consumption of office supplies has been reduced due to new electronic tools. But it will be some time before the electronic medium completely replaces paper receipts and documents. Security and portability are the main reasons to use physical copies of any document such as receipts, invoices, salary receipts, agreements, etc. While one person may carry information on a laptop or tablet, carrying a hard copy of all electronically generated information is a good practice because computers can be stolen or damaged. Another drawback is the reliance on power to retrieve any information on electronic media. One of the reasons paper receipts still exist is the accounting stipulation associated with them. The accountant is required to obtain the recipient’s signatures on the vouchers when payments are made in cash. This is difficult in an electronic environment.