.
Suspend Your Business & Keep it Secure

Whether you choose to suspend or sustain your business, keeping your investment secure is a must while you are deployed. This means not only protecting your business, but protecting your customers and yourself. This section will help you ensure your business is secure until you retur.

- Protect customers by storing all customer records, accounts, credit card numbers, and other confidential information in a secure location. If you keep this information onlie, make sure your computer is protected from viruses and keep the information behind an encrypted password. If this information is kept in paper files, make sure the file cabinet is locked, no one but one person you completely trust has a key to the cabinets, and the cabinets are in a secure location.

- Protect your business with security alarms and have someone you trust do periodic checks on the business. Make sure they have a key and can check inside as well for things such as leaks, infestations, and other problems that could go undetected from the outside.

- Notify the local police department that your business will be closed while you are deployed. Havig the police perform drive-by checks while you are gone can help keep your business safe at night and other times when its security might be compromised.

- Leave necessary utilities on while you are deployed. Certainly utilities can certainly be turned off while you are away, but others such as gas or electricity will be necessary to heat your building, run the security alarm, and perform other necessary functions. Make sure you turn off ony what you can and leave necessary utilities on.

- Never broadcast the fact that you are out of the cuontry. Putting a sign on the window, leaving it in your phone message, announcing it in email responses, or letting customers know via your website is just asking for your business to be vandalized or broken into. It is certainly understandable to want to let customers know you are being deployed overseas, but to the genera public and once you are gone, letting them know you have closed your business temporarily for personal reasons is enough information to provide them.

- Establish a system of checks and balances to safeguard yourself and your business against embezzlement, fraud and unauthorized withdrawels from your accounts. If you keep your accounts open, let your bank and credit card companies know that you or someone you designate should be contacted if there is any unauthorized activity on your accounts. Designate someone you trust who will be able to review your accounts on your behalf.

As soon as your have a plan for keeping your business secure while you are gone, find out the steps you need to take to re-open your business when you return.

Proudly Presented By The Veterans Corporation