If you are a small business owner, it is probably the last thing you want to think about; disaster recovery. Unlike the big businesses that have multiple locations to stash co-lo servers, most small businesses have only a single retail space, office building, or are even run from a basement or garage. Just thinking of having everything your business owns wiped out in one massive calamity is gut-wrenching enough, but to have your client information, sales data, and inventory counts wiped out as well can be a massive hassle as well.Fortunately, most businesses have insurance for any type of disaster that can wipe out their goods and supplies, and yours doesn’t; it should be the first thing you do tomorrow morning. Insurance is great for replacing staplers, office chairs, and your precious inventory, but what about the things that insurance simply can’t replace? What about the data from your hard drives that are now buried under four feet of water? If you use a mobile payments provider such as Square Register, PayPal, or another one of the big companies, you can breathe a sigh of relief that your data is safe and secure.
The best part of storing your sales and inventory data in the cloud is that you can simply access it from a brand new replacement device that you buy from any store immediately after a disaster strikes. This not only gives you peace of mind that you will never lose your precious client list of business data, but it can also help you get that insurance claim processed faster. Most insurance companies want a detailed list that verifiable and complete before they put a value on your loss and cut you a check. With all your inventory counts securely stored offsite, your insurance company is much more likely to expedite your claim and find that you have accurate records.
But beyond the fact that mobile payments can aid in disaster recovery, using a cloud-based platform can also keep your company from running into a disaster in the first place. Most people think of floods, hurricanes, or fires when they think of a disaster hitting their business, but in this new world of data breaches you can find that the future of disaster recovery involves hacking and cyber-attacks more than the forces of Mother Nature. By putting the security responsibly squarely on an expert company like Square Register, PayPal, or another mobile payment processor, you can take a lot of the heat off of your own company and let the security be handled by their experts that have a bigger budget and better capabilities.
Though there is no sure-fire way to protect yourself against every type of disaster, you can make sure that your data is safe and ready to be accessed just moments after the unthinkable happens. Using mobile payments isn’t the only step you should take to prepare yourself for a horrific turn of events, but it is a really great place to start. Anything that can’t be instantly replaced by insurance money requires a contingency plan, so make sure you keep everything that is important to the future of your business in more than one location.
