Documenting your IT: what to write down and where to keep it

Why it matters more than people think

Most small businesses run on knowledge held in one or two heads. The office manager knows which login the courier site uses. The owner's nephew who set up the Wi-Fi knows the router password. The previous IT contractor knew why the server has two network cables. When any of those people is unavailable, simple jobs turn into investigations, and investigations cost money at hourly rates.

Documentation also changes the outcome of a bad day. If ransomware hits or the internet fails, the first hour is spent working out what you have and who to call. A business that can open a single document showing the internet provider's account number, the firewall model, where the backups go and who the Microsoft 365 admins are recovers faster than one that starts by searching old emails.

The system list

Start with a table of every system the business relies on. For each one, note what it does, who supplies it, the account or customer number, who the admins are, what it costs and when it renews. Include the obvious ones such as Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, Xero or MYOB, and the job or practice management system, but also the easily forgotten ones: the domain name registrar, the website host, the DNS provider, the email filtering service, the phone system and the alarm monitoring company.

The domain name deserves a special mention. If your domain expires or the registrar account is in a former employee's name, your email and website can stop working with very little warning. Record who the registrant is, which email address the renewal notices go to, and when it expires. If the answer to any of those is a former staff member or a personal Gmail address, fix it now while it is easy.

The network and hardware

Write down how the office is connected: the fibre provider and account number, the router or firewall make and model, the static IP address if you have one, and where the main network equipment physically sits. A simple diagram showing internet in, firewall, switches, Wi-Fi access points and any server or NAS is worth more than pages of text. A photo of the network cabinet with labels helps a technician who has never been to the site.

Keep an asset list of computers, laptops, phones, printers and network gear, with serial numbers, purchase dates, who uses each one and warranty expiry. This list feeds into budgeting, insurance claims and leaver processes. It does not need special software; a well-kept spreadsheet is enough for most offices under thirty people.

Procedures that get repeated

Some tasks happen often enough that a few written steps save real time: setting up a new starter, removing a leaver, adding a printer to a laptop, connecting a new phone to email, what to do when the internet drops. Write these as short numbered steps with screenshots if needed. They don't need to be elegant; they need to be correct and findable. Also record decisions and their reasons. Why is the accounts folder restricted to two people? Why does the warehouse PC never sleep? Why is there a second internet connection? These notes stop someone tidying up a setting that exists for a good reason.

Where to keep it, and what not to put in it

Keep the documentation somewhere secure that at least two people can reach even if the office is shut and the main server is down. A SharePoint site or a locked-down folder in your cloud storage works well, with a printed or offline copy of the most critical page, the emergency contacts and system list, kept somewhere safe. Avoid a single Word document on one person's laptop.

Never store passwords in the documentation itself. Put them in a business password manager and have the documentation say where each credential is kept. That way the documentation can be shared more widely, with your IT provider or a new office manager, without handing over the keys at the same time.

Keeping it current

Documentation goes stale quickly. The fix is to make updating it part of every change, not a separate project. When a new system is signed up for, it goes in the list that day. When the router is replaced, the model and settings change in the record before the job is closed. If you use an IT provider, ask them to keep your documentation updated as part of their work and to give you a copy you control.

Once a quarter, spend twenty minutes reading through it and checking for anything obviously wrong: a supplier you've left, a staff member who has gone, a renewal date that has passed. That short review catches most drift. If you'd like a starting template, Office IT can share the structure used for its own client records during a health check.