It's Hurricane Season - Are You Keeping Your Business Records Safe?

If your business were hit by a hurricane and looked like the one below, would you be able to recover your business records?

Yesterday I discussed some ways to get relief and loans from U.S. agencies if disaster strikes your small business. Today, I'm focusing on disaster preparedness for your business records. The SBA's disaster preparedness plan shows disasters prevalent in each area of the U.S., and I don't see any disaster-free zones. While damage to your business location can be devastating, destruction of your business records can be even more disastrous. Take steps now to assure the safety of your business records:

Keep physical records (documents and computer data) in a safe location. A fire-proof box in your office is not going to do it. If there is a tornado or hurricane, that box could be flying through the air; if there is a flood, it could be under a foot of water. Keep copies of your important papers (including tax returns, bank statements, and financial statement) off-site or scan them and put them in a safe deposit box. You can also put scanned documents on a CD or flash drive. If you have important software (financial or proprietary software, or software for your particular kind of business) make a copy if you can and put that software in a safe place, along with your data. For example, if you have your financial data on QuickBooks and you don't have the program, you may find it difficult to retrieve the data when you need it.

Take photos of your business location and assets. Digital photos taken shortly before the disaster can show more precisely what assets your business owns. Don't count on your memory; you will be under stress and likely not to remember crucial pieces of equipment. Don't forget the asset records for all of your business equipment, so you can substantiate the cost basis for those assets to your insurance carrier.

Plan for hardware loss. Losing your business server can keep you out of business for many weeks. Backing up your server on a network located somewhere off-site or through an online program like Carbonite can get you back up and running much more quickly.

Update your business emergency plan. If you don't have one, now is the time to get one. Look at it every year - July 1 might be a good time to do that - and review it with new employees and employees whose responsibilities have changed. When the hurricane is bearing down is no time to be checking on your business emergency plan. Make sure the plan includes care of business records and data.

Planning for Disaster. H-P has prepared a disaster risk analysis plan for SCORE that helps you review business data and determine the probability and severity of business risks and how to mitigate (minimize) these risks. Read more about Disaster Preparedness on the SBA website.