IT guides for small business
Plain-English answers to the IT questions small and medium businesses ask most: security, Microsoft 365, costs, networks, backups, phones and more. Written for business owners and office managers, not IT people.
Cyber security
Scams, ransomware, passwords and keeping a small business safe.
- How to spot a fake invoice email before you pay itA fake invoice usually gives itself away through a changed bank account, an odd sender address, pressure to pay quickly, or an amount that doesn't match a real order. The safest habit is simple: never pay a new or changed account number until you've confirmed it with the supplier using contact details you already had.
- A supplier says their bank account has changed: what to doTreat every 'our bank details have changed' message as unverified until you have spoken to a known person at the supplier on a phone number you already had. Payment redirection fraud depends on you updating the account from the email alone, so a short phone check stops it almost every time.
- What is business email compromise, and how do small offices stop it?Business email compromise is a fraud where criminals take over or imitate a real business mailbox, then use it to trick people into sending money or sensitive information. It is stopped by protecting your own mailboxes with multi-factor sign-in and by verifying any payment or data request outside email.
- Boss impersonation scams and how to protect your staffBoss impersonation scams use a message that seems to come from the owner or a manager, asking a staff member to make an urgent payment, buy gift cards or send sensitive files. The defence is an agreed rule that any unusual request from a senior person is confirmed in person or by calling them on their known number.
- Gift card scams aimed at staff, and how to stop themIf anyone asks a staff member to buy gift cards and send the codes by email or text, it's almost certainly a scam. Gift cards are popular with fraudsters because the value can be spent or resold within minutes and can't be traced or reversed, so a firm 'we never pay with gift cards' rule shuts this down.
- Text message scams targeting your staff: what to watch forScam texts pretend to be from couriers, banks, toll roads, government agencies or a colleague, and push staff to tap a link or reply quickly. The rule for work phones is simple: never act on a link in an unexpected text, and check anything important by going to the organisation's app or website yourself.
Microsoft 365
Licences, Outlook, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive explained.
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard or Premium: which one does your office need?Business Basic suits staff who work in a browser or on a phone, Business Standard adds the installed desktop apps, and Business Premium adds the security and device management most offices handling client data should have. Many small businesses end up on Premium for office staff and a cheaper plan for everyone else.
- Microsoft 365 plans outside the business range: frontline, email-only and enterpriseMost small offices only need the business plans, but a few other licences save money or solve specific problems: frontline plans for shift workers on shared devices, email-only plans for people who never touch documents, and enterprise plans once you pass the business user cap or need advanced compliance. The right mix often costs less than putting everyone on the same plan.
- Outlook search not finding emails: why it happens and how to fix itWhen Outlook search misses emails you know are there, the cause is usually a broken or incomplete search index on the computer, a cached mode setting that only keeps recent mail locally, or searching the wrong scope. Checking those three things in order fixes most cases in under an hour.
- Outlook mailbox full: how to free space without losing important emailA full mailbox stops you sending and eventually stops you receiving, so act on the first warning. Find out what is taking the space, clear large attachments and deleted items, then move older mail into the online archive so the main mailbox stays well under its limit.
- Outlook rules: setting up inbox rules that work and avoiding the ones that cause troubleGood Outlook rules move predictable mail, such as notifications, newsletters and supplier statements, out of the way so the Inbox holds what needs a person. Keep rules few and specific, make sure they run on the server, and review them now and then because attackers also create rules in hacked mailboxes.
- How to set up and use a shared mailbox in Microsoft 365A shared mailbox gives a team one address, such as accounts@ or info@, that several people can read and reply from without sharing a password. An administrator creates it in a few minutes, grants access to the right staff, and it appears automatically in their Outlook.
Managed IT & costs
What IT support costs, how MSPs work and how to choose one.
- What does IT support cost a small business in New Zealand?Most NZ offices pay for IT support in one of three ways: a monthly fee per user, a monthly fee per device, or an hourly rate when something breaks. The right number depends on how much is included, how many people you have and how much risk you want to hand over, so ranges vary widely between providers.
- Per user, per device or hourly: which IT pricing model suits you?Per-user pricing suits offices where each person has more than one device, per-device pricing suits shared workstations, and hourly billing suits very small teams with simple, stable setups. The model also shapes how your provider behaves, so choose it for the incentives as much as the price.
- What is a managed service provider, and what do they actually do?A managed service provider, or MSP, is an outside company that takes ongoing responsibility for your IT for a regular monthly fee. Instead of calling someone only when things break, you have a team that monitors, maintains and secures your systems continuously and helps your staff when they get stuck.
- Managed IT or break-fix: which suits your business?Break-fix means paying someone only when something goes wrong; managed IT means paying a regular fee for a provider to keep things from going wrong. Break-fix can be cheaper for small, simple setups, while managed IT usually costs less overall once you rely on technology every hour of the working day.
- Should you hire an in-house IT person or use managed IT?An in-house IT person gives you someone on site who knows your people, while a managed IT provider gives you a team with broader skills and cover when someone is away. For most offices under about fifty staff, outsourcing costs less and covers more; larger or more specialised businesses often combine both.
- Co-managed IT: sharing the load between your IT person and a providerCo-managed IT means your own IT staff and an outside provider share responsibility for your systems, each doing the work they are best placed to do. It suits businesses that already have an internal IT person or small team but need more depth, more tools or cover when that person is away.
Networks & Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi, cabling, firewalls and internet that keeps working.
- Why your office Wi-Fi keeps dropping out, and how to fix itOffice Wi-Fi usually drops out because of weak coverage at the edges of the building, neighbouring networks shouting on the same channels, or a home-grade router struggling with thirty devices at once. Each cause leaves a different pattern, so working out where and when the drops happen tells you which fix you need.
- How many Wi-Fi access points does an office need?As a rough starting point, plan one business access point for every 150 to 250 square metres of open-plan office, or every 20 to 30 people, whichever gives you more. Walls, floors and how many devices each person carries then move that number up or down, which is why a short survey beats a rule of thumb.
- Mesh Wi-Fi vs business Wi-Fi: which one suits an office?Consumer mesh kits suit homes and very small offices of a few people, but most offices are better served by business access points cabled back to a switch and managed centrally. The difference shows up in capacity, security options, roaming and how much control you have when something goes wrong.
- How to set up guest Wi-Fi without exposing your business networkSafe guest Wi-Fi gives visitors internet access and nothing else: no view of your computers, printers or files, and no knowledge of the staff password. That takes a separate network that is isolated from staff devices, a password you change regularly and a few limits on speed and content.
- Getting reliable Wi-Fi in warehouses and large buildingsWarehouses need Wi-Fi designed around the racking, not around the floor plan, because steel shelving full of stock blocks and reflects signal. Reliable coverage usually means access points mounted lower down the aisles, directional antennas for long runs and a design that suits scanners and forklift terminals rather than laptops.
- Cat6, Cat6A or fibre: which cable does your office need?For most desks and Wi-Fi access points, Cat6 is enough today and Cat6A is the better choice if you want room for faster access points and a longer life. Fibre belongs between comms cabinets, between floors and between buildings, where distance or interference rules copper out.
Backup & recovery
Backups that work and getting back up after something goes wrong.
- The 3-2-1 backup rule, explained for a small officeThe 3-2-1 rule says you should keep three copies of your data, on two different types of storage, with one copy somewhere other than your office. For a small business it is the simplest test of whether one bad day can wipe out years of work.
- Backup, sync and archive: three different jobsSync keeps the same files identical across devices, backup keeps older copies so you can go back in time, and archive moves data you rarely use somewhere cheaper but safe. Most small businesses need all three, and trouble starts when one is mistaken for another.
- Why OneDrive or Dropbox on its own is not a backupOneDrive and Dropbox keep your files in sync, but anything that goes wrong on one device, from an accidental delete to ransomware, is copied to the cloud as well. They also sit behind the same login as your live data, so losing that account means losing the files and their history together.
- How to back up Microsoft 365 properlyA Microsoft 365 backup should copy every mailbox, OneDrive, SharePoint site and Team to separate storage at least daily, keep versions for as long as your business needs, and let you restore anything from one email to an entire user. Microsoft's built-in retention helps, but it is not an independent copy.
- Backing up Google Workspace: Gmail, Drive and the restGoogle keeps Workspace running and highly available, but deletions, compromised accounts and departing staff can still lose your data for good. A third-party backup that copies Gmail, Drive, shared drives, Calendar and Contacts every day to separate storage closes that gap.
- Immutable and offline backups: the copy ransomware cannot touchAn immutable backup is locked so nobody, including an administrator, can change or delete it until a set date passes; an offline backup is physically disconnected from your network. Either one means that even if criminals take over your systems, a clean copy survives for you to restore from.
Phones & internet
Fibre, VoIP, Teams calling and the copper switch-off.
- The copper switch-off: what your business needs to move, and whenCopper phone and broadband lines are being retired area by area across New Zealand, and anything still plugged into one will stop working when your address is switched off. The job is to find every device that relies on copper, move it to fibre, wireless or mobile, and test it before the line goes dead.
- VoIP explained: what it is and what it means for a small businessVoIP (voice over internet protocol) means your phone calls travel over an internet connection instead of a dedicated copper phone line. For a small business it usually means cheaper calls, numbers that follow staff anywhere, and features that used to need an expensive phone system, as long as your internet is reliable.
- Hosted PBX, Teams calling or mobiles only: which phone setup suits youA hosted PBX suits offices with a receptionist, call queues and desk phones; Teams calling suits teams that already work inside Microsoft 365; and mobile-only suits very small or mobile businesses that rarely transfer calls. Many offices end up with a mix, but the main system should match how calls are really answered.
- What a business phone system costs, and what changes the priceMost NZ small businesses on a cloud phone system pay a monthly fee per user, plus small charges for extra numbers and add-ons, plus one-off costs for handsets and setup. Typical totals vary widely with features and hardware, so compare quotes line by line rather than on headline per-user price.
- How to move your business phone numbers to a new providerPorting moves your existing phone numbers from one provider to another, so customers keep dialling the same number. It is routine, but it needs the right account details, a scheduled cut-over time and a working new system ready before the switch, or calls can drop for hours.
- 0800 numbers and local numbers: which your business actually needsAn 0800 number makes calls free for the caller and suits businesses selling nationally, while a local number signals a real presence in a town and costs you nothing per inbound call. With a cloud phone system you can run both, plus numbers for other cities, all ringing the same team.
Devices & hardware
Laptops, PCs, printers and how long they should last.
- Choosing a business laptop: the specs that matter and the ones that don'tFor most office staff the specs that change daily life are memory, a solid-state drive, battery life, screen quality and the keyboard, not the fastest processor on the shelf. Buy for the work the person does, standardise on one or two models, and spend the savings on warranty and a good dock.
- Business laptops vs consumer laptops: what the extra money buysBusiness laptops cost a little more because they are built for several years of daily use, come with longer and better warranties, ship with Windows Pro, and include management and security features that consumer models skip. For a device someone depends on for work, those differences usually outweigh the cheaper sticker price.
- How long should business laptops, PCs, servers and switches last?As a rough guide, business laptops last three to five years, desktops four to six, servers and network switches five to seven, and firewalls until the vendor stops supplying security updates. The real deadline is usually warranty expiry or the end of software support, not the hardware dying.
- Windows 10 end of support: what it means and how to move to Windows 11Windows 10 reached end of support in October 2025, so computers still running it no longer get free security fixes. Any business PCs still on Windows 10 should be upgraded to Windows 11 where the hardware allows, or replaced, with paid extended updates used only as a short bridge.
- Windows 11 Pro vs Home: which one a business needsBusiness computers should run Windows 11 Pro. Home lacks the management, encryption and directory features that let you secure a device, control updates and sign staff in with their work accounts, and those gaps become a problem the moment you have more than one or two machines.
- Mac or PC for the office: how to decideChoose based on your business software first: if any core application is Windows-only, Windows PCs are the simpler choice, while design, media and many modern cloud-only offices run very well on Macs. A mixed office works fine too, as long as both platforms are managed and secured to the same standard.
Cloud & AI
Cloud servers, Copilot and using AI safely at work.
- What "the cloud" actually means for a small businessThe cloud simply means software and storage that run on someone else's computers in a data centre, which you reach over the internet and pay for by subscription. Most small offices already use it every day through email, accounting and file sharing, so the real question is not whether to use it but how to run it well.
- Cloud or onsite server: comparing the real costs and risksFor most offices under about 50 people, moving files and email to cloud services costs about the same as buying a new server over five years but removes most of the hardware risk. An onsite server still makes sense when you run software that needs one, have very large files on a slow connection, or must keep data physically on premises.
- How to move an old office server to the cloud without chaosMoving an old server to the cloud works best as several smaller moves: files to SharePoint or a similar service, user sign-in to a cloud directory, and any remaining application to a hosted server or its vendor's own cloud version. Plan it around what the server actually does today, not around the hardware.
- Microsoft Azure for small business, in plain EnglishAzure is Microsoft's rent-a-data-centre service: you hire virtual servers, storage, databases and networking by the hour or month instead of buying hardware. Microsoft 365 runs on top of Microsoft's cloud too, but Azure is the part where you build and manage things yourself, so most small offices only need a small piece of it.
- Azure Virtual Desktop and hosted desktops: when they make senseA hosted desktop runs Windows and your applications on a server in a data centre, and staff connect to it from any device. It makes sense when people must use a server-based application from many places, when devices need to stay free of company data, or when staff come and go often; for an ordinary office on Microsoft 365, a well-managed laptop is usually simpler and cheaper.
- Running line-of-business software that still needs a serverIf a key business application only runs on a Windows server, you have four realistic choices: keep a small server onsite, rent a hosted server in a data centre, move to the vendor's own cloud edition, or replace the software. The right one depends mostly on what the vendor supports and how many people use it away from the office.
Running IT in a small business
Starters, leavers, policies, budgets and planning.
- The IT checklist for a new starter's first dayA new starter should walk in to a working laptop, a Microsoft 365 or Google account with multi-factor sign-in ready to finish, access to the right shared folders and nothing more, and ten minutes with someone who explains the basic security rules. Most of that can be done the week before they start, which is the whole trick.
- The IT checklist for when a staff member leavesOn a leaver's last day you should block their sign-in, reset their password, remove their phone from multi-factor authentication, collect their devices and decide what happens to their mailbox and files. Then work through every other system they used, because the main email account is rarely the only door left open.
- Shared logins: why small businesses should stop using themA shared login means you can't tell who did what, you can't turn on multi-factor sign-in properly, and you have to change the password every time someone leaves. Replacing shared accounts with individual ones plus shared mailboxes, shared folders and a password manager fixes all three without making work slower.
- How to write an IT acceptable use policy staff will actually readAn acceptable use policy sets out how staff may use the business's computers, phones, email, internet and data. Keep it to two or three pages in plain language, cover the handful of rules that genuinely matter to your business, have each person sign it, and review it once a year.
- The IT policies a ten-person business actually needsA small business needs about five short IT documents: an acceptable use policy, an access and password rule, a backup and recovery plan, an incident response plan, and a device policy covering laptops and phones. A privacy statement for customer data rounds it out. Each can be one or two pages, and together they cover most of what insurers and customers ask about.
- Documenting your IT: what to write down and where to keep itGood IT documentation is a short, current record of what systems you have, who supplies them, who can administer them, how the network is put together and when things renew. Keep it in one secure place two named people can reach, and update it every time something changes, not once a year.