The business side of IT
Questions to ask before you sign up for business software
The demo looked great and the price works. Before you sign, ask a few questions about what happens to your data.
1 min readChecklist
The short version
New business software usually means trusting a vendor with your data. A few questions up front can prevent problems later.
Sign-in and access
- Can it use our existing work accounts to sign in? That keeps access under your control and makes removing leavers easier.
- Does it support multi-factor authentication? Can we require it for everyone?
- Can we control what each user can see and do?
Your data
- Where is our data stored, and who at the vendor can see it?
- Is it encrypted, both when stored and when sent?
- How is it backed up, and how far back can deleted data be recovered?
- Can we export all of our data in a usable format at any time?
- What happens to our data if we cancel, and how long until it is deleted?
Security and reliability
- How do they tell customers about security incidents, and how quickly?
- What is their record for uptime, and how do they communicate outages?
- Which other companies do they share our data with?
Practical
- How does it connect to the systems we already use?
- What does support look like, and is it included?
- How do prices change at renewal?
- Who owns the account on our side? It should be a company-controlled account instead of one person’s personal email.
Bring IT into the conversation before signing. They can spot integration and security issues that are hard to see from a demo.
Talk to us about your technology
Tell us what you run today and what is getting in the way. We will get back to you about how we can help.