How to Protect Your Business Finances in 2022

No matter how successful or profitable your business is, all it takes is one successful security breach to put your finances at risk.

Protecting your business finances and putting proper safeguards in place is not only good for your bottom line.

It can also help you meet your legal and regulatory liabilities, while also giving your customers some valuable peace of mind. With that in mind, here are the main ways that you can protect your business finances in 2022. 

Monitor, Check, and Audit

For the most part, simply staying on top of your finances and maintaining an ability to detect irregularities will keep your finances safe. If you have a disorganised financial infrastructure, it is much easier for you to lose track of your outgoings and become vulnerable to losses or theft.

That is why you should always monitor all of your business accounts and audit your finances on a quarterly basis. You can enlist the help of a dedicated accountant for this task, as they will flag up any anomalies that you might have missed.

You should always keep on top of your business credit reports and make sure to swiftly report any errors or suspicious activity to your credit-reporting bureau. As a small business owner, you will likely have a legal responsibility to monitor and audit your accounts regularly, so this is another stellar reason to do so. 

Safeguard Your Digital Assets

These days, much of your financial activity takes place in the digital sphere. That is why it is important to dedicate sufficient resources to safeguarding your digital assets and ensuring that cybercriminals can not walk in through the front door, so to speak.

There are many very simple steps you can take to build more robust digital defences. Always have an active firewall and cybersecurity software in place, and make sure that your employees all engage in cybersecurity best practices. Another important step is to close off the most obvious points of entry for malicious actors.

For example, many high-profile breaches occur via account takeovers, wherein a hacker will gain access to an employee or customer account in order to slip past your defences undetected. In order to avoid this and stop account takeover attempts in their tracks, businesses should opt for FIDO2-certified passwordless authentication, which uses biometrics instead of vulnerable passwords. By using biometric information, which is usually authenticated on the user's device, only the successful pass is sent to system servers to process. By removing the password, the vulnerability is removed. 

Protect Physical Cash Reserves 

If you are a small business owner who keeps cash on-site for any part of the day, take extra steps to ensure that those cash stocks are not a tempting target. Consider investing in a smart safe that can monitor the levels of cash being stored and communicate these with the bank.

Use a security partner that can guarantee a safe transfer of physical funds, such as via guarded pickup. Always make sure that everyone is aware of how much cash is on the premises and try to avoid leaving cash on-site outside of business hours. These simple steps will greatly reduce the vulnerabilities to your finances.

By keeping your money safe, you can focus on what really matters - growing your promising business.