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Free business continuity plan template
Build a plain-English business continuity plan for your small business. Fill in the steps below and your plan writes itself as you go, ready to print, save as a PDF or download as a Word document.
The basics
What is a business continuity plan?
A business continuity plan is a short, practical document that says how your business will keep its most important work going, and get back to normal, when something goes wrong. That might be a fire or flood, a cyber attack, a long internet outage or a key person being off sick. It is often confused with a disaster recovery plan, which is narrower.
| Business continuity plan | Disaster recovery plan | |
|---|---|---|
| Covers | The whole business: people, premises, suppliers, customers and IT | IT systems and data |
| Main question | How do we keep serving customers while this is fixed? | How do we get our systems and data back? |
| Who owns it | A director or manager | Usually your IT team or IT provider |
| How they fit | The disaster recovery plan is one part of the business continuity plan. Recovery times in your IT plan should match how long each critical activity can stop. | |
What to include
What a good small business continuity plan covers
You do not need a thick binder. For most small businesses a few pages that the right people can actually find and follow is far more useful. The builder above covers these six areas.
Make it work
A plan you have never tested is a guess
Once a year, get the people named in the plan round a table for an hour and talk through one scenario as if it were happening now. You will find out quickly which phone numbers are out of date, who does not know the backup exists and which steps nobody can actually do.
- Pick a scenarioFor example: it is Monday morning and every file on the server is encrypted.
- Walk through the first hourWho notices, who is called, what gets switched off and how staff are told.
- Check the recoveryAsk your IT support how long a full restore would really take, and compare it with your critical activities.
- Fix the gaps and update the planThen set the date for next year.
The National Cyber Security Centre’s free Exercise in a Box gives you ready-made cyber scenarios to run.
Source: Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025/26 (DSIT and Home Office, published April 2026).
The IT side of the plan is where we help most: backup and disaster recovery with tested restores, cyber security to make an attack less likely, and a leased line or backup connection so an internet outage does not stop work.
Free • No obligation • Senior engineer • 30 minutes
Check the IT side of your plan
A plan is only as good as the backups and systems behind it. A senior engineer will look at your backups, recovery times and remote working with you, and tell you plainly whether your IT could actually deliver what your plan promises.
What you get from the review
- Backups and the last restore test checked
- Recovery times compared with your critical activities
- Remote working and failover reviewed
- A plain-English list of what to fix first
If it is urgent, call us on 01903 255 159.
FAQ
Business continuity plans: common questions
A business continuity plan is a document that sets out how a business will keep its most important work going during a disruption, such as a fire, flood, cyber attack, IT outage or the loss of a key person, and how it will get back to normal afterwards.
There is usually no legal requirement for a small business to have one, but it is one of the most useful documents you can write. Some customers, insurers and regulators ask to see one, and a few pages of contacts and first steps can save hours of confusion when something goes wrong.
A business continuity plan covers the whole business, including people, premises, suppliers and customers. A disaster recovery plan covers getting IT systems and data back. The disaster recovery plan is one part of the wider business continuity plan.
At minimum: who is in charge, emergency contacts, your critical activities and how long each can stop, the systems and data you depend on and how they are backed up, steps for the most likely scenarios, how you will communicate, and when the plan will be tested and reviewed.
Review it at least once a year and after any incident or significant change, such as moving office, adding a new key system or changing a major supplier. Testing it once a year by talking through a scenario is the best way to find out-of-date details.
Yes. ISO 22301 is the international standard for business continuity management systems. Most small businesses do not need certification, but the same basic idea applies: know what matters most, plan for disruption, test the plan and keep it up to date.
Yes. You can fill it in online, print it, save it as a PDF or download it as a Word document to edit further, with no sign-up.
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