A few years ago I helped a small accounting practice whose main office PC died on a Monday morning in the middle of filing season. "We've got backups," the owner said. We did find a backup drive. It was plugged into the same PC, it had stopped working months earlier, and the most recent copy was from the previous March.
Nobody had been careless. The backup simply wasn't anyone's job, and nobody had ever checked it.
Why backup routines matter
Hardware fails, laptops get stolen, staff delete the wrong folder, and ransomware (malicious software that locks your files until you pay) reaches small businesses every week. A good backup turns each of these from a crisis into an annoying afternoon.
There's a legal side too. If you hold customer or staff data, data protection rules expect you to keep it secure and recoverable. And there's the plain business case: every day you can't reach your invoices, orders or client files costs money.
What a better routine includes
Three copies, two types of storage, one off-site. This is the 3-2-1 rule. Your working files are copy one. Keep a second on a different device, such as an external drive or a network storage box. Keep a third somewhere else entirely, usually a cloud backup service, so a fire, flood or break-in can't take everything.
A frequency that matches your tolerance. Ask yourself how much work you could afford to redo. If losing a day is survivable, back up daily. If losing an hour would hurt, back up more often. For most small businesses, nightly is a sensible default.
The right type of backup. A full backup copies everything. An incremental backup copies only what has changed since the last run, so it's faster and takes less space. Most good tools do a full backup weekly and incrementals in between, automatically, so you rarely need to choose by hand.
Protection from ransomware. File syncing services like OneDrive or Dropbox are not backups. They mirror changes, including damage. Turn on version history, and make sure at least one copy is disconnected or cannot be overwritten.
Regular testing. A backup you've never restored is a guess, not a safeguard.
A one-page written plan. Record what is backed up, where it goes, how often, who checks it, and how to restore it. Keep the logins in a password manager, not in someone's head.
How to build it
1. List what matters. Accounting data, customer records, email, shared drives, your website, and the laptops of key staff. Note where each one actually lives.
2. Pick simple tools. Windows File History or macOS Time Machine can handle the local copy. For off-site, a cloud backup service such as Backblaze costs little per month. Many accounting and email platforms also offer their own export or backup options, so check what yours provides.
3. Automate everything. Backups that depend on someone remembering will eventually be forgotten.
4. Name an owner and a deputy. One person checks the backup reports each week. Another knows how to do it when the first is on holiday.
5. Schedule restore tests. Each month, restore a few files and open them. Each quarter, restore a whole folder to a different location. Once a year, rehearse recovering a full machine.
6. Review when things change. New software, a new hire, or a move to the cloud all mean your backup plan may have gaps.
Mistakes I see most often
Your next step
Further reading: Ireland’s NCSC guidance on business backups