Does Your Small Business Have A Disaster Recovery Plan?
The recent Superstorm Sandy caused the loss of billions of dollars in revenue for New York tri-state area businesses. But the impact was felt across the country, as news reports got business owners thinking about their own disaster recovery plan.
As winter continues, business owners must worry about storms, blizzards and floods. Small businesses must have a disaster recovery plan in place for a fast return to productivity and to minimize profit loss in the days and weeks following a natural disaster. This recovery plan should include:
– Triple back-ups of mission critical data, with remote access to one set of files (in the event you cannot get in to your office)
– IT staff with the technical knowledge to retrieve those back-ups, if necessary
– Contingency plans for employees to work from home or elsewhere
– An office inventory, stored remotely, so you can file a fast, accurate insurance claim and recuperate loss of property quickly
– Means to contact clients, vendors and anyone else you do business with to keep them apprised of the situation
Your Virtual Bookkeeper: Your Accounting Disaster Recovery Plan Made Easy
When you hire a part-time virtual bookkeeper and financial controller, maintaining your books via remotely-hosted, cloud-based software, your disaster recovery plan for your financial records and personnel is easy.
When you use cloud-based accounting software, your service provider manages back-ups in a secure environment. If a natural disaster strikes your office, your financial records are not affected.
Likewise, your virtual bookkeeper and part-time financial controller work remotely., in separate offices. If something were to happen to their office space, they would simply work elsewhere, accessing your financial data through the Internet the same as they would in their home office.
In a worst-case scenario, since your financial accounting records are all hosted remotely in the cloud, another virtual bookkeeper could attend to your business temporarily. (This has never happened, but it’s an option should a blizzard, flood or hurricane hit the region.)
When Disaster Strikes…
New Yorkers never thought they’d see a storm the magnitude of Sandy. It’s been called a “100-year-storm.” The fact is, natural disasters can strike anywhere, at any time. If something happens to your small business – whether a localized disaster such as fire or theft or a natural disaster – you’ll have a lot on your plate. Even with a strong disaster recovery plan, there’s a lot you’ll have to do as a business owner to return to productivity. draas solution