Load shedding and business software

Software reviews written overseas never ask what happens when the power goes off. In South Africa it is a buying criterion. A cloud product that never goes down is no use if your router is dark, and a desktop product that runs without a connection is no use if your computer has no power. Both can be made to work, and the right choice depends on how you work.

What stops, and when

The row that surprises people is the third. A cloud product on a laptop and a phone hotspot keeps working through a power cut. It also does not care if the office power is out, because your data is not in the office.

Cloud or desktop, honestly

• A cloud product needs a connection, and it needs it at the moment you save. Ask what happens to something you were typing when the connection drops.
• A desktop product keeps your data on one computer. A power cut, a failed disk or a theft takes it with it, unless you back up.
• A product that does both, such as a desktop ledger with cloud features, gives you a choice but also two things to look after.
• Neither is simply safer. What matters is that you know which failure you have prepared for.

Set up for the outage

1. Put your router, and the fibre or wireless unit, on a small battery or UPS. It costs little and covers most outages.
2. Use a laptop for accounting and payroll, so that the computer carries its own battery.
3. Keep a phone with a data plan ready to share as a hotspot, and test that it works with your software.
4. Turn on automatic saving or drafts, where the product offers them, and ask the vendor how it protects work in progress.
5. If you use a desktop product, back up every day to a place that is not the same computer, and test a restore.
6. Check whether the product has a phone app, and what the app can do when the connection is poor.

A month end with a power cut

Picture the last working day of the month with two hours of load shedding in the middle of payroll. If your router is on a battery, you lose nothing. If it is not, you lose two hours of a day you cannot spare. The fix is small and has to be done before the day, not during it. The same goes for your payment run, since banks and SARS work to their own timetables, not yours.

Payroll day plan

1. Run payroll a few days before it is due, not the evening before.
2. Check the load shedding schedule for your area, and plan the run for a stretch with power.
3. Keep the bank's payment file ready, and know how to submit it from a phone if the office is dark.
4. Submit the EMP201 on the first day you can, and keep the proof of payment.

Plan around the deadlines

The EMP201 is due by the 7th of every month, and the VAT return has its own date. SARS eFiling is a website, so you need a working connection to submit. Do not leave a return to the last hour. File a day or two early, especially in months when the schedule is bad. The compliance calendar shows the dates that matter.

Questions to ask a vendor

• Is there a phone app, and which tasks does it support on a weak connection?
• What happens to an invoice or a payroll run I was part way through when the connection drops?
• How often is my data backed up, and where?
• Can I export a full copy of my data whenever I like?
• Does your support run during South African business hours, and how do I reach it when my own connection is down?