Accounts & Finance department is the foundation of any business. Therefore, it is very important to adopt good business continuity plan to avoid potential disruptions in the accounting process. Let’s find out why business continuity matters in financial processes and how to establish a business continuity plan for disaster preparation and recovery!

1. BUSINESS
CONTINUITY
FOR FINANCE &
ACCOUNTS
DEPARTMENT

2. Business Continuity is all about planning and
preparation undertaken to deal with difficult situations
like natural disasters, a business crisis, workplace
violence, or any event that results in the disruption of
your business operation so your organization can
continue to function with as little disruption as
possible.
It is important that you should plan and prepare not
only for events that will accounting stop functions
completely but also for those that have the potential to
affect business services adversely.
INTRODUCTION TO
BUSINESS
CONTINUITY

3. Accounting and finance departments play an
essential role in the management and overall
performance of any business, irrespective of its size
or nature. Apart from providing full transparency in
financial transactions, these departments provide
specialized and centralized support to other teams
and managers.
So, the organizational accounting operations should
work on dedicated software programs, cloud
technologies, redundant systems, and implement
strategic planning to keep their business functioning
smooth and crisis-free.
CRITICALITY OF
DEPARTMENTAL
PROCESSES AND
NEED FOR
CONTINUITY

4. STEP TO DEPLOY
BUSINESS
CONTINUITY
PLAN

5. 1.
IDENTIFY THE TYPE AND
SEVERITY OF RISKS
Locate the potential threats or risks that
could disrupt your accounting operations.
Consider all types of critical risks and their
severity — from technical threats (power,
security, hardware/software) to human or
natural disasters.

6. 2.
DEFINE HOW THE RISKS
AFFECT THE PROCESSES OF
THE DEPARTMENT
Once you have recognized the severity of the
risks, consider which risks will have severe
impacts on specific departmental processes
and how long your business can operate
without those components running.

7. Presentations are communication tools that can
be used as demonstrations, lectures, speeches,
reports, and more.
3.
FORMULATE AND DEPLOY
METHODS TO MITIGATE
THESE RISKS
After identifying and defining the extremity of
the risks, adopt controls for prevention and
mitigation which includes - how you will
reduce interruptions, how you will recover from
them, and the resources you will need to
protect your assets, staff, and business as a
whole.

8. 4.
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
FOR CONTINUOUS
PERFORMANCE
Test and re-evaluate the mitigation methods
regularly to ensure it remains relevant and up-
to-date as technologies and operational
methods keep on changing especially in
Accounts and Finances.

9. SUMMARY OF
CONTENTS
Cloud offers great insurance against disasters or outages as
they maintain high availability, reliability, and security for
accounting operations.
Financial and accounting firms works to deliver financial
data to users more efficiently with cloud-based solutions
and provide efficient disaster recovery and business
continuity solution for smooth working of accounting
operations.
ROLE OF CLOUD
IN BUSINESS
CONTINUITY

10. WHY SHOULD YOU
COMBINE CLOUD WITH
YOUR BUSINESS
CONTINUITY &
DISASTER RECOVERY
PLAN?

11. 1.
PROTECTION OF
SENSITIVE DATA
For business continuity plans to be effective,
accounts and finance departments must fully
consider the security and recovery requirements of
the data.
It is important to choose the best cloud hosting
service that offers data encryption, recovery, and
automatic backup for all financial processes.

12. 2.
DEVICE
INDEPENDENCE
Cloud computing helps accounting staff to simplify
and speed up workflows anywhere-anytime with a
continuous, mobile-ready solution that syncs data
instantly through the Internet.
Hence, if your local workstation is damaged, you
can resume your financial operations with any other
device.

13. 3.
FLEXIBLE AND
ADJUSTABLE STRUCTURE
Finance teams can make alterations to cloud-
based operations to avoid disruptions and
financial losses during disasters.
You can scale up or down operations and
storage, reduce downtime and add/remove users
on cloud-based applications so that your team
can work efficiently.

14. ISO 22301 sets the requirements for a business
continuity management system (BCMS) and is
considered the only credible framework that
understands and prioritizes the threats to your business
for effective and smooth business continuity.
The standard keeps critical functions up and running and
take a proactive approach whenever disruptive incidents
occur.
It recommends the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) model
for the business continuity management system
ISO-22301 BUSINESS CONTINUITY
MANAGEMENT

15. Establish policy,
objectives,
controls, and
procedures
relevant to
improving business
continuity.
Implement and
operate
established
policies and
objectives.
Monitor, review
and measure
business
continuity
management
performance.
Execute and
maintain the
BCMS by taking
corrective
actions based on
calculations and
testing.
PLAN DO CHECK ACT
PDCA PROCESS FOR
BUSINESS CONTINUITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

16. ABOUT US
Ace Cloud Hosting powered by Real Time Data Services,
LLC (RTCS) is an Intuit Authorized QuickBooks hosting
provider and the winner of 2016 Accountex USA Best
Application Hosting Provider and 2018 FinancesOnline
Great User Experience Award.
To know more, visit
www.acecloudhosting.com
or call us at 1-855-ACE-IT-UP
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18. REFERENCES
Business Continuity for Finance and Accounts Department
- Ace Cloud Hosting
ISO 22301 standard for business continuity management
Top Benefits of Cloud Computing for CPAs & Accounting Firms
- Ace Cloud Hosting
- International Organization for Standardization