It’s not something that small business owners think about: But how are you affected if the one person with access to your business’ most important online accounts – your company’s social media accounts, online bank accounts and cloud-based payroll software – dies unexpectedly? Will you be able to access those accounts? You better, if not your business might be in for some financial pain.
A big issue
The Wall Street Journal recently wrote a feature story on this seldom discussed but very important topic. More and more today, small businesses are turning to online, cloud-based accounts for everything from their banking to their payroll. And far too often, only one person can access those accounts, including their passwords. If that person should die, it could leave businesses with no way to access these accounts. Which could mean that your business wouldn’t be able to cut checks for its employees or pay its vendors.
False sense of security?
The Wall Street Journal story defines the problem as a matter of trust. Simply put, business owners put an excessive amount of trust in the cloud. They erroneously feel that data they put in the cloud will remain protected forever. This isn’t true, though. The cloud doesn’t offer complete protection from hackers. And it also doesn’t guarantee that you’ll always be able to access your critical business files, information and accounts. In the event you can’t access your online accounts because none of your surviving employees knows the passwords, having all of your critical business matters stored online won’t be much help.
Solving the problem
Of course, the best way for business owners to safeguard themselves is to make sure that several people know the passwords for these accounts. Owners can also compile a list of passwords and keep it securely stored in a safe. But what happens if online accounts are in an individual’s name rather than the company’s? Then there might be trouble. Privacy laws and policies might make it so that no one besides that specific individual can ever get into an account. The Wall Street Journal story points to the terms-of-service agreement for Yahoo! It says that ownership ends when the account holder dies. No one else, then, can get in. The solution here? Make sure your online accounts are in either the name of your company or the names of more than one employee.