In the aftermath of the World Trade Center tragedy, state, federal and city agencies are helping affected businesses recover as best they can. Most assistance comes in the form of long-term, low-interest loans.

        Remember, these are loans, not grants. As with any loans, business owners have to fill out applications and qualify. But they face a huge problem — access to their records and data.

        Most of the large corporations in the affected area are prepared. Big companies, afraid of having their systems disrupted by the Y2K bug, installed redundant systems, contingency plans and offsite backup programs two years ago.

        But small businesses will be a different story. Jim King, director of the New York State Small Business Development Center, estimates 10 percent to 30 percent of small businesses will have lost all records.

        So it's time to develop your own disaster prevention plan. I've put a copy of the “contingency plan” worksheet from my book on my site, www.RhondaWorks.com.

Old solution: off-site

        For years, I recommended businesses back up data at least once a week and store copies off-site at least a mile away. But that's not easy to remember.

        So now I'm suggesting an online backup system, and you won't have to remember anything. It is easy and inexpensive.

        The past few years, a number of companies have been started to provide online, automatic data backup. I settled on the @backup service from SkyDesk, www.backup.com.

        The process is quite simple. You merely download the program from the company's Web site, select which of your files or folders to back up, and choose a time to have the backups performed. The first backup may take a while, but after that, the program only updates files you've changed since the last backup, so it may only take a few minutes a day. This can be done at night if you leave your computers on, or during the day. It works with either dial-up modems or high-speed connections (services for AOL and MSN members are due out soon).

        Your data are encrypted so even SkyDesk personnel don't have access, and they maintain backup and redundant systems, so even if something happened to their corporate headquarters, your data would be safe.

Small scale

        The @backup program was specifically designed for small businesses and home office users. According to Mike Joseph, SkyDesk's executive vice president of marketing, 70 percent of its customers are companies with fewer than 25 employees. Prices vary according to how much data storage space you'll need. Mr. Joseph says the average customer uses 70 megabytes of storage space.

        Here are costs from a few online backup services:

        • @backup, www.backup.com — 30-day free trial; $49.95 annual for 50 megabytes; $299 a year for 500 megabytes.

        • ibackup, www.ibackup.com — 50 megabytes, $36 annually; 500 megabytes, $120 annually;

        Losing your records is one disaster you can avert.

        Rhonda Abrams is the author of The Successful Business Organizer. For free business tips, write her at 555 Bryant St, No. 180, Palo Alto, CA 94301.

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