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Article Date:	11/07/2006
Article Title:	small businesses lose key financial data
Research from KashFlow, a small business bookkeeping software company, has revealed that one in three small businesses fail to adequately back up their information and this results in them losing key financial information. The company says over a third of small businesses have admitted to losing key financial information because of either a computer malfunction or vital paperwork going missing. The survey highlights the risks associated with using accounting or bookkeeping software that is not regularly backed up. Many micro businesses and sole traders use only one computer to manage all aspects of their company. If that PC is not regularly backed up one slight error or a virus could mean the end of their financial records and a long time spent trying to rectify the situation. The survey also revealed that it is not just those who use computers who are most at risk from not backing up. This also affects those who only keep one paper record as they risk losing their files unless copies are made at regular intervals. Duane Jackson, managing director at KashFlow, says: “Despite high profile campaigns to encourage more businesses to regularly back up data there is obviously still a massive amount to learn and this highlights the very real risk of using a financial software package that is not backed up regularly to a remote location.” “KashFlow users have the peace of mind that their vital information is backed up every 12 hours to a secure, confidential and contained environment which removes the risks associated with simply installing a piece of software on a machine that is vulnerable to errors”. Tony Dalton, managing director at VS Datasafe, says: “Thousands of businesses lose millions of pounds worth of data every year due to fire, theft, power cuts, hardware failures or operator mistakes with 100% of hard drives failing over time. “Most small businesses don't have an active backup plan, instead backups tend to get left on the bottom of a "to do" list, not realising that 20mb of accounting data would take approximately 21 days and would cost in the region of £6,000 to retype.”