Security & Insurance Tips For Home Based Businesses

1) If your work is done on a computer and everything important is on it in relation to your business, make sure you back up your files and store them in a secure separate building. A successful entrepreneur I personally know of, had his computer stolen, along with the disks that he backed up his information on. A fire would have had the same consequences. More work at home resources and security tips may be found at http://www.wahdirectsales.com/ 2) If you are running a store from your home, never post the fact that you will be away on vacation, this is an open invitation for thieves to rob your home and business. Instead post something like "you will be closed for renovations", or for "inventory counting." 3) If you have customers visiting your home, they have to feel secure too. If you are processing credit card information, it's a good idea to have an alarm system sign on the outside of your home. Also, customers do not want to see other peoples credit card receipts laying somewhere in full view, as you go into another room to process their card authorizations. 4) If you have part-time or volunteer help, one tool that is helpful, is to have an interactive calendar on your business website. However this should be in a secure area. There are some organizations using volunteers where they can log in and choose the hours they are available. This relieves the home business owner of some scheduling headaches. Again, you don't want to post information on when you will be out of town in view of the public.. The best solution is to have this in a secure login area where usernames and passwords are required. 5) Make sure to review your insurance policy in regards to your home business. If you have just brought in $50,000 in inventory and have used your line of credit for the purchase, are you covered in case something happens to your home business like a flood or fire?. How does your insurance policy cover changing inventory levels?, Many insurance companies don't cover roof cave-ins due to snow, basement floods due to weather, sewer backups, etc. Make sure you read the fine print and that your home business is really insured. (c) Cal Cathbert, WahDirectSales, 2005 - You are welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info). You can find more business tips at Work at Home Resources