With ID fraud on the rise, destroying confidential documents is a must for every business. Therefore, a shredder is now an essential piece of business equipment that should be considered a staple item. Buying a shredder for business is almost like a minefield with so many brands available in the market and with so many technical terms used as well.

So here are some guidelines in our simple guide to buying a shredder to help you wade your way through the jargon.

What's in the cut? Should you go for strip cut or cross cut? As the names imply, a strip cut shredders cuts the paper into a long thin line while the Cross Cut shredder shreds the paper horizontally.

Cross cut shredders cut the paper into thinner and smaller pieces to make it difficult to put the documents back together, so of course it would make sense that the smaller the cut, the higher the security level it will offer - though the more expensive the shredder will be. Aside from the two cuts mentioned, there are also the diamond cut, confetti cut and the micro cut. The micro cut is the smallest cut there is.

If you are reading a shredder catalogue and come across the words "sheets per pass" in its technical data, this simply means how many sheets of paper you can shred at a time, a good quality product may allow you to insert from 20 pages up at a time, a great time saver although a shredder fit for business use should have a minimum of 12 sheets per pass. A shredder for business use should also be able to shred any document without the need to remove staples or paper clips.

Another bit of jargon you will come across when checking out shredders is "duty cycle." Duty cycle indicates how well built the shredder is. The higher the duty cycle, the better the machine is which means, again, the more expensive it is. A duty cycle is counted in sheets per day. A wonderful quality business shredder should at least have a duty cycle of 100 to 150 sheets per day.

An additional sign of quality and durability of a shredder is its "Continuous Run Time" rating. A suitable shredder for business should have a continuous run time of 20/40 minutes, 20 minutes continuous run and 40 minutes cool down time.

Finally, when buying a shredder for business, get one that can destroy a CD or DVD and your data will be fully protected against theft and fraud.