The historic storm on the east coast brought this question back to me. Think about it. If everything in your office were lost to fire or flood, how would you continue your business? By everything, I mean all computer, files, and papers.

How would you pay your employees or vendors?

How would you know which customers you owed orders to? Or how would you communicate to your customers that you are still in business at all? How would you get replacement inventory?

How would your employees know whether they still had a job?

If your business is leveraging cloud technology, these questions are easy to answer if you take the time to do some preparation. Paperless timesheets and online payroll processing make paying employees on time a breeze.

Whether using your online banking on the “pay now” button on vendor invoices, paying vendors on time is a breeze. If you have a higher volume of transactions, there are a number of other options to pay vendors electronically.

Using cloud-based accounting, project management, and CRM solutions will ensure you and your team can work from anywhere. Cloud-based email such as Office 365 or Gmail means you stay in touch with employees and customers.

They key to seamlessly keeping your business operating during a disaster is planning. Now is the time to get the right tools in place and prepare a disaster recovery plan that is communicated with your employees. Don’t let a disaster be the end of your business.