The office relocation checklist I wish someone had handed me years ago

My crew and I have moved a lot of small offices. Studios, shops, a couple of GP practices, more accountants than I can count. So this is the office relocation checklist I actually work from. Every single one of those clients thought their move would be simple, and every single one of them found the same three things caught them out: the internet, the furniture nobody measured, and the boss deciding on the Thursday before that actually we are keeping the filing cabinets.

So here is what I have learned, written the way I would tell it to a client on the phone rather than the way it usually gets written up.

Start with the internet, not the boxes

If there is one thing that ruins a Monday morning after an office relocation, it is not having a working connection. A new line or a transfer routinely takes weeks, sometimes longer if the building needs new cabling. I tell every client to sort this in the first week of planning, before anything else. If your relocation date is less than a month out and the line is not booked, that is the one call to make today.

Phones matter almost as much. If you are on a hosted VoIP system it usually just needs the new address and a working connection. If you are still on analogue lines tied to the building, find that out early, because it changes the whole timeline. Buildings have their own quirks too: the managed blocks around Watford often want the service lift booked days ahead, and the older premises in St Albans come with permit bays and narrow access. I would rather know a month out than on the morning.

Work out what is actually moving

This is where offices lose the most time. Nobody wants to be the person who says "we don't need that old server rack" three days before the move, so it sits there until it has to be dealt with on the day, at cost, in a rush.

A short walk round the office with a notepad, room by room, sorts most of this. Ask what gets used weekly, what gets used yearly, and what nobody can actually remember using. Anything in that last group either gets sold, donated, or goes to storage, and none of those things happen quickly, so decide early.

Measure before you promise anything

I have turned up to more than one office move where the new desks would not fit through the new door, or the boardroom table would not make the turn on the stairs. Measure your biggest items: desks, filing cabinets, server racks, the boardroom table. Then measure the doorways, the lift if there is one, and the stairwell at both ends. If something will not fit, you want to know that during planning, not on moving day with a van outside.

Tell people before you need to

Clients, suppliers, the bank, your insurer, Companies House if the registered address is changing. None of this is urgent in the way the internet or the furniture is, but it all has a form to fill in and a small delay built into it, so the earlier you start the list the less it costs you in the final week.

I would also tell your building's management or landlord earlier than feels necessary. Access, parking for the van, lift bookings and out of hours entry all need agreeing, and getting that wrong on the day is the kind of thing that turns a five hour job into an eight hour one.

Plan the move itself around the business, not the calendar

Most offices try to move on a Friday so they lose the least working time. That is sound thinking, but it is also why Fridays are the busiest day in this trade. If you can move on a quieter day you often get more flexibility, and it is worth asking for a price on two different dates before you commit.

Decide in advance what happens to the business on moving day itself. Some clients work from home for the day, some send the team out to visit customers, some just shut for the afternoon. Whatever you choose, decide it on purpose rather than by accident.

The day itself

On the day, the job is mostly about sequence. IT equipment and anything fragile should be the first things off the van at the new site and the last things anyone touches, so they are not sitting in a stack getting knocked about while furniture gets moved around them. Label everything by which room it is going to, not which room it came from, because whoever is carrying it at the new end needs to know where to put it down, not where it started.

Walk the crew round before anything gets lifted. Two minutes showing what is fragile, what is not moving, and where you want the van to sit saves real time later.

Your first week in the new office

Give the team a short list on day one: where the fire exits are, how the alarm works, who has keys, and where the meter cupboard is. It sounds obvious until you are the one explaining it at nine in the morning with clients calling.

Update your address everywhere it needs to go, from your website and Google listing to your stationery and your insurance. This one gets forgotten because nothing breaks immediately when you skip it, it just quietly costs you enquiries later.

If you are planning an office relocation in Bedfordshire or Hertfordshire

We move small offices, studios and shops across St Albans, Watford, Stevenage and the rest of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, usually working evenings and weekends so the business does not lose a working week. If you want a fixed price in writing before anything is booked, send us the two postcodes and roughly what is coming. If you have not moved before, the house moving checklist covers the same ground for a home move.