Backup gets your files back. Business continuity keeps you working.

Ask whether a firm is protected against a disaster and the answer is usually "we have backups." That answers one question. It leaves the more expensive one open.

Two different questions

Backup answers: can we get our data back?

Business continuity answers: how long are we down while we do?

A firm can have perfect backups and still lose a week. If your server fails on a Monday, the files may be safe, but someone has to buy a replacement, set it up and copy everything back. Your staff can't work until that's finished.

For a professional firm, that week is the real cost. Fee earners who can't reach their files don't bill, deadlines don't move, and clients notice.

The two numbers that matter

You don't need the jargon, but two ideas are worth knowing because every decision here comes back to them.

How much work can you afford to lose? If you back up once a night and something fails at 4 pm, you've lost the day. For some firms that's acceptable. For a firm in the week before a filing deadline, it isn't. The industry calls this the recovery point.

How long can you afford to be down? An hour, a day, a week? This is the recovery time, and it's the number most firms have never decided.

Write both down. They tell you what to buy. A firm that can live with a day's lost work and three days down needs something very different from one that needs to be back in an hour.

What backup gives you

• A separate copy of your files, mailboxes and computers.
• Earlier versions, so you can go back to before something was deleted or encrypted.
• Recovery measured in hours to days, depending on how much there is.

It protects against deletion, ransomware and hardware failure. It's essential, and for a firm that works entirely in Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace with no server, good backup plus a spare laptop is often enough. We explain why cloud files still need it in does Microsoft 365 back up your data?

What business continuity adds

The usual form is a device in your office that takes frequent copies of your server, often every hour or less, and also sends them offsite.

The difference is what happens when the server dies. The device can run a copy of the server itself, within minutes. Staff carry on working from the copy while the real one is repaired. If the whole office is out of action, the same copy can run from a data center.

So the recovery time drops from days to minutes, and the work lost drops from a day to an hour or less. The full name for this is business continuity and disaster recovery, usually shortened to BCDR.

Who needs which

Backup is enough if:

• Your work lives in cloud services and you have no server.
• You could work from laptops for a few days without real harm.

Business continuity is worth it if:

• You run a server that holds your practice management, accounting or document system.
• Your software only works when that server is running.
• A day of downtime costs more than the device does in a year.
• You have deadlines that can't slip: court filings, tax deadlines, closings.

Many firms are a mix. Email and documents sit in the cloud and need backup. One critical system sits on a server and needs continuity.

The test that matters

Both are worthless untested. For backup, restore a file each quarter. For continuity, run the copy of your server once or twice a year and have someone do real work on it for ten minutes. You'll find out whether it works on a day when nothing is at stake.

Keep a note of each test. Insurers ask, as we cover in what cyber insurers ask.

How to decide

1. List the systems you couldn't work without.
2. For each, write down how long you could be without it and how much work you could afford to redo.
3. Match each to backup or continuity.
4. Add up what a day of downtime costs your firm. Billable hours are the simplest measure.

That last number usually settles it.

Backup for Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace is included from our Business plan and backup for each computer in Secure. A business continuity device is an extra we price with you. See backup and recovery, or talk it through in a free IT and cybersecurity review.