Barter Network Is a Blessing to Cash-Strapped Businesses : Trends: Stationery, jewelry, catering services and vacations are among the items swapped by 460 trade exchanges and their 240,000 clients.

Lois Dale, a 46-year-old businesswoman, works in a standard-looking office with modern conveniences at her fingertips.

From her desk, she prints memos from her personal computer, which she relays via a fax machine. She also makes copies of documents on a photocopier close at hand.

Everything seems quite normal, actually. Until one finds out how they were acquired.

They were bartered.

“Bartering is fun,” said Dale, founder and president of Barter Advantage Inc., looking around at the booty of goods in her Upper East Side office. “All this is mine, and I didn’t have to shell out a cent.”

With the recession, many cash-strapped business people appreciate the advantages of swap deals.

Last year, the nation’s 460 trade exchanges and their 240,000 clients bartered everything from stationery to jewelry to catering services and vacations.

Dale said her barter network of small businesses and individuals traded $1.5 million worth of goods and services.

As a whole, the industry trades about $6 billion a year nationwide, said Paul Suplizio, chief executive officer of the International Reciprocal Trade Assn., a 13-year-old nonprofit trade association that promotes a “self-regulatory peer system to police the barter industry.”

Suplizio said the industry, which grew at an average rate of 8% in the ‘80s, has mushroomed 12% a year since the recession started in 1990.

Bartering today means just what it meant hundreds of years ago when people traded trinkets for food in the New World. No money needed. No liquid cash.

Today, trade exchanges such as BAI work as networks, with participating members paying an annual fee. This allows an individual or a small-business owner to put goods and services up for trade and provides credits in return. These credits can be used to “purchase” other goods and services.

Small businesses usually trade their excess inventories, while individuals put their free time to good use, thus conserving cash.

A carpet dealer traded rugs to get face lifts for his wife--and ex-wife; a fish vendor exchanged trout and scallops for a computer; a lawyer swapped advice on divorce lawsuits for wholesale milk and cheeses.

Connie Jason, a free-lance editor-writer, joined the network nine years ago.

When she has spare time, she barters her editing expertise for dry cleaning and dinners at chic restaurants, among other services.

Recently, she had periodontal surgery, paying her dentist with credits.

“It’s supplemental income, found money,” she said. “I’ve gotten my paper supplies via the system. I’ve even gone to Hawaii and Mexico. Some things you wouldn’t normally buy, you get them through barter.”

There’s no escaping the Internal Revenue Service, however.

While some used to take part in the system to avoid paying taxes, for the past 10 years the IRS has kept tabs on people engaged in the business.

“Bartered goods are taxable income,” said Neil O’Keeffe, IRS public affairs officer. “They must be declared according to their market value.”

The Better Business Bureau has no comment on the swap system in general, though spokesman Patrick Delgaudio said that one can consult with the bureau when choosing a particular barter company.

Delgaudio reiterated that the BBB does not recommend or endorse any product or business.

Charles Kershner, an attorney who’s been bartering for more than 10 years, has mixed feelings about the system.

“I’m an honorable person,” he said. “Trade or cash, my services are worth the same amount--$200 a hour.”

Everyone is not as fair, he said.

He criticized other members who jack up the value of their goods and services when it comes to bartering.

A watch that a jewelry dealer would sell for $5,000 in cash, for example, might go for 7,500 credits.

Kershner also warned against becoming too dependent on the system.

“It’s dangerous to rely only on barter to get what you need,” he said.

“Barter should merely be a healthy adjunct to an active business . . . to supplement cash, not to replace it. You still need cash to pay the bills, taxes, rent. No matter what, barter cannot (always) be used in lieu of cold cash.”