Business Continuity Plan for Small Business: What to Include and Where to Keep It

If you could not work tomorrow, who would know which clients have sessions next week, where the signed contracts are, or how to log in to your email? For most solo service businesses the honest answer is nobody. Everything runs through one person’s memory and one person’s laptop, and that works right up until the day you’re sick, in the hospital, dealing with a family emergency, or simply unreachable.

A business continuity plan for small business owners is the document that answers those questions ahead of time. It names who steps in, tells them where to find what they need, and gives them a short list of what to do first so your clients are taken care of. It’s not fun to write, and I get why it sits on the someday list. But it’s one of the few pieces of business infrastructure that protects your clients, your income, and the people who love you all at once.

Step one: choose your disaster buddy

Before you write anything, decide WHO is going to make sure these tasks get done if you’re seriously injured, ill, or worse. I call this person your DISASTER BUDDY.

The obvious choice is often the wrong one. My mom would be distraught if anything happened to me, and she would not be in a position to calmly work through my client list. My partner would likely be just as upset, and since we spend so much of our time together, there’s a real chance that whatever happened to me (a car accident, for example) happened to them too.

Your disaster buddy should be someone who will hear quickly if something happens to you and who will have a level enough head to think about your business during a hard week. You can name more than one person, and I’d recommend it. I’ve landed on my best friend AND a business friend, and each of them has access to my directions document.

Once you’ve chosen them, tell them. A plan nobody knows exists does not help anyone.

What to include in your business continuity plan

The plan does not need to be complicated. A single document is enough to start. What matters is that it covers four areas: the people, the access, the client work, and the money.

People and contacts

• Backup vendors. A list of people who do your same work in a similar style, with email and phone numbers, so short-term clients are not left hanging. The longer this list, the better.
• How backup vendors get paid. If someone takes over a session or a deliverable, write out how they should be paid and how your disaster buddy can access the funds to do it.
• Your accountant, with email and phone.
• Team members and contractors, such as an editor, VA, or subcontractor, with their contact details and what they currently work on.

Access and logins

This is the section people dread, and the one that matters most, because without it nothing else in the plan can be acted on.

• Your computer and phone. Your computer password and your cell phone PIN. Everything else can be spelled out perfectly, but if nobody can get past the lock screen, they cannot reach any of it.
• A password manager with emergency access. Rather than writing passwords into a document, keep them in a password manager and set up its emergency access feature for your disaster buddy, if your manager offers one. Then the plan only needs to explain how they get in.
• The accounts that matter most: email, your client management system (Dubsado or whatever you use), website and blog, domain registrar, payment processor, bank, online galleries or file delivery, and cloud storage and backups.

Client work

• A step-by-step list of what your disaster buddy should do first, including exactly where to find client information.
• “Where to click” instructions for your CRM. How to find a client’s contact details, timelines, contracts, questionnaires, and project status in your system. “It’s all in Dubsado” is not an instruction someone outside your business can follow.
• How to access client archives, in case a past client needs files.
• Where other important business documents are kept, online or in hard copy.

The part of this list most people skip is the “where to click” instructions, because writing out every step in Dubsado by hand is tedious. I built Docssier for exactly that: turn on the browser extension, click through the process once, and it screenshots each step and writes the steps for you, so your disaster buddy gets a guide they can actually follow. It’s free to start.

Money and admin

• Tax account information, including your EIN and sales tax ID.
• A list of your monthly and annual subscriptions, with what each one is for and how to cancel it. Keep it current.

The first-week instructions

Your disaster buddy will not have time to read a manual. Give them a short, ordered list at the top of the plan so they know exactly where to start:

1. Find every job that is in progress or due within the next month, and contact those clients first.
2. Hand off or reschedule that work using your backup vendor list.
3. Monitor your inbox for new leads, client questions, or jobs that came in and were missed in the CRM. They won’t know your system like you do, so email is the safety net.
4. Pause or cancel monthly and annual subscriptions that are no longer needed.
5. Pay off the credit card for charges that posted before those subscriptions were stopped.

If you have automated workflows running, add one more line: which workflows to pause so clients do not keep receiving scheduled emails or invoices while things are on hold.

Where to keep your continuity plan

A plan only works if the right person can reach it when you can’t. Keep it in a shared cloud folder or document that your disaster buddy already has access to, and keep the sensitive credentials in your password manager rather than in the document itself.

Then put a recurring reminder on your calendar to review it, once or twice a year at minimum, and any time you switch tools, add a team member, or change how you deliver your services. An outdated plan with the wrong login for your old CRM is close to no plan at all.

Start with one document this week

You do not need to finish this in one sitting. Choose your disaster buddy, open one document, and work through the four sections above. DONE is better than perfect here, because a rough plan someone can follow is worth far more than a polished one that does not exist yet.

A plan also matters for time away you can see coming. Katie Chappell‘s done-for-you setup automated 95% of her client experience tasks before she took maternity leave, and her business kept running without a dip.

If writing this out shows you that your processes only exist in your head, that’s useful information, and it’s usually the bigger problem to solve. Not sure where to start? A Systems Blueprint Intensive maps your process and shows you exactly what to fix first.

Frequently asked questions

What is a business continuity plan for a small business?

It’s a written plan that explains how your business keeps running, or winds down responsibly, if you are suddenly unable to work. It names who steps in, where your logins and client information are kept, and what they should do first.

Who should be my disaster buddy?

Someone who will hear quickly if something happens to you and can stay level-headed through it. Avoid choosing only people who would be most affected by an emergency, such as a partner who travels with you. Naming two people, one personal and one who understands business, covers more situations.

Should I put my passwords in the plan?

It’s safer to keep passwords in a password manager and set up its emergency access feature for your disaster buddy, if it has one. The plan itself should explain how they get into the password manager, plus your computer password and phone PIN, which they’ll need first.

How often should I update my continuity plan?

Review it at least once or twice a year, and any time you change software, add or remove a team member, or change how you deliver your services.