Preventing Downtime: Three Steps to Practical Business Continuity
Accounting firms of all sizes need to be absolutely certain that they can retrieve and protect sensitive customer information, and be back up and running quickly in the event of an unforeseen business interruption or even a major disaster.
On a daily basis and especially in the event of a crisis, a common challenge among accounting firms is maintaining remote access to e-mail, corporate files, customer information, accounting applications and financial data because many accountants work offsite or at customer locations. In addition, protecting sensitive customer data is a top concern.
When the unexpected happens, firms can minimize business interruptions and ensure that customer data remains unaffected by focusing on three steps. The three “C’s” of practical business continuity are Communications, Connectivity and Control.
While it may not be realistic for an accounting firm and its professionals to have the level of redundancy and disaster recovery capabilities of large enterprises, it is possible to ensure operations continue by implementing a three-step practical business continuity plan that covers the basic 3 C’s: communications, connectivity and control.
See Preventing Downtime: Three Steps to Practical Business Continuity, by Paul Chisholm of Mindshift Technologies, from WebCPA.com.
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All accounting firms are vulnerable to physical disasters. Some form of disaster generally happens at least once in the history of every firm. Physical disasters may be natural or man-made and may be caused by fire, flooding, tornado, hurricane, explosion, earthquake, freezing, civil unrest, terrorism, theft, or vandalism. Limited accessibility to the firm’s offices, whether from a storm or other regional event, could be just as devastating even in situations in which there is no physical loss or damage. Computer disasters may result from power surge, data corruption, software error, human error, or equipment failure. This article covers the importance of disaster planning and the steps in the disaster planning process. See also Coping With Physical Disaster, by Philip Jan Rothstein, FBCI.
