Why you should audit your IT systems annually.

The shocking fact about business systems and technology is that they can go out of date very quickly.How do you keep up with new technologies and make sure you have a competitive advantage?In this article, we will outline the simple steps your IT provider should be doing on an annual basis to keep you informed and your business up to date with the latest IT technologies.An annual IT systems audit should be set in the diary when this takes place very much depends on your business operation.' A good rule of thumb is to carry out an audit before quieter times of the year.This allows the business to plan any upgrades and projects to coincide with those quieter times which will cause less disruption to the business.What's entailed in an audit and how will your business benefit?' Let's cover these:

Age of equipment

An inventory of all IT equipment should be kept, this should include model numbers, manufacturer and more importantly warranty status.IT equipment which includes desktops, laptop, servers tend to have a life cycle of between 3 - 5 years.Maintaining an inventory with this information allows the business and IT provider to plan for upgrades.' You can easily prioritise which machines should be renewed or upgraded using the inventory list.

Automation

The audit should also look to include an overview of manual tasks or problems in the business.Is there a manual, repetitive task that could be automated?' This could be something as easy as duplicate data input by a member of staff.You might have 2 systems in place that require the same data to be input, why not automate this so data is entered in only once?Automation is becoming more common in the workplace and services such as Microsoft Power Automate and Zapier allow business to work smarter, not harder.

Disaster Recovery Test

More insurance providers are now offering "Cyber Insurance" critical insurance that any business that has been hacked will make a top priority when renewing.A little know fact about cyber insurance is the need for a disaster recovery plan with questions such as "how long will it take your business to recover"' and "when was the last time your disaster recover was tested?"This calls the need for at least an annual test of your recovery process and should be included as part of an IT audit.For more information about how we can help your business and provide an independent 3rd party IT audit of your systems and technology please get in touch with us.