The IT Setup Checklist for New Businesses

You have a hundred decisions to make in your first few weeks. IT is one of the few that either gets done properly now or becomes a mess you untangle later. The good news is that the foundations are simpler than they sound, and most of this takes a day or two.

Work through the checklist in this order. These are the steps that save a new business the most time and the most headaches.

1. Pick your email and productivity platform first

Everything else flows from this decision, so make it first. You have two realistic options.

Microsoft 365 — the default for most London businesses. You get Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams for calls and chat, OneDrive for your files and SharePoint for shared documents. If your clients sit in financial services, professional services or any enterprise, they are almost certainly on it already. Sharing a platform with them makes collaboration hassle-free.

Google Workspace — popular with tech startups and creative agencies. Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet and Drive. The interface is cleaner and the live collaboration in Docs is excellent. If your team lives in a browser, this may suit you better.

The short answer: both are good. Microsoft 365 Business Basic starts around £5 per user per month, with Business Premium and its stronger security around £20. Google Workspace Business Starter is about £5 per user per month, with Business Plus at £15.

If you cannot decide, take Microsoft 365. Most of your clients and partners will be on it, and the Premium tier’s security features earn the extra cost. You can add Google tools later. Migrating email between platforms is the part you want to avoid.

2. Give your team a password manager on day one

Your team will create accounts for dozens of services: project management, accounting, CRM, social media, cloud storage. Without a password manager they will reuse one password everywhere or keep a spreadsheet. That is just human nature.

A password manager fixes it painlessly. Everyone remembers one master password, and the tool generates and stores a strong, unique password for everything else. Sharing credentials between colleagues becomes simple and safe, so no more passwords in Slack.

Two good options:

• 1Password Teams — around £6 per user per month. Excellent interface, quick to set up, great for small teams.
• Bitwarden Teams — around £3 per user per month. Open source, very capable, easier on the budget.

Pick one and get everyone onto it in week one. You will have removed one of the most common security problems small businesses face, and your team will thank you for not having to remember forty passwords.

3. Switch on multi-factor authentication in ten minutes

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) means confirming it is really you with a second method when you log in — usually a prompt on your phone or a code from an authenticator app. You have used it with your bank.

Turning it on across your business accounts is the single most valuable thing you can do for your security, and it takes about ten minutes per service. Even if somebody steals a password, they cannot get in without your second factor.

Turn it on here first:

• Your email platform, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace — this is the priority
• Your password manager
• Any banking or financial accounts
• Your domain registrar
• Your cloud storage

Nearly every platform has MFA built in, waiting in the security settings. On Microsoft 365 Business Premium you can enforce it across the whole organisation from the admin panel in one go. Set it once and forget it.

4. Decide between company laptops and personal devices

This one comes down to your budget and how fast you are hiring.

If budget allows, buy company laptops. You buy them, configure them and control what runs on them. That gives you authority over security settings, updates and what happens when somebody leaves. A solid business laptop costs £600-1,200 and lasts three to four years.

If budget is tight, run BYOD. People use their own laptops. You save the upfront cost, but you then need endpoint security on personal devices and a clear policy on what company data may be stored locally. That is a reasonable trade for an early-stage startup, as long as the basics are covered.

Either way, look at Mobile Device Management (MDM) once you pass five to ten people. MDM lets you manage devices remotely: push security updates, enforce encryption, and wipe a device that goes missing. Microsoft Intune comes with Microsoft 365 Business Premium, which is one reason growing businesses gravitate to that tier.

5. Put every file in one place in the cloud

Choose one file storage system and make it your single source of truth. On Microsoft 365 that means OneDrive for personal files and SharePoint for shared team documents. On Google Workspace, Google Drive with shared drives.

The principle is simple: files live in the cloud, not on laptops, USB sticks or email attachments. Keep everything in one place and people find what they need, collaboration gets easier, and a broken laptop never costs you a document.

Agree a sensible folder structure on day one. Something like:

• Company-wide shared documents
• Department or team folders
• Project folders
• Templates

It does not need to be clever, just consistent. Agree where things go and hold the line. Future you will be grateful.

6. Protect every device with endpoint security

Windows Defender, built into Windows, is fine for personal use. A business needs more visibility and control: seeing threats across every company device, responding quickly when something trips, and getting alerted when a device behaves oddly.

Think of endpoint security as insurance for your devices. You hope never to need it, and when you do, you really need it.

Two good options for small businesses:

• Microsoft Defender for Business — around £5-10 per user per month. Integrates neatly with Microsoft 365, with a decent management console.
• CrowdStrike Falcon Go — around £8-15 per user per month. Excellent detection and well respected across the cybersecurity industry.

Both give you antivirus, threat detection and basic device management. Either works well for a startup. What matters is having something on every company device, managed centrally so you can see your whole fleet at a glance.

7. Back up so you can get the business back

“But our files are in the cloud — are not they backed up already?”

Sort of. Microsoft and Google protect you against their own infrastructure failing. They do not protect you against deleting a folder by accident, an angry leaver wiping a shared drive, or ransomware encrypting your data. For that you need a separate backup solution.

Follow the 3-2-1 rule: three copies of your data, on two types of storage, with one copy offsite. For a cloud-first startup that means your live data in Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, plus a third-party service copying everything to a separate cloud location.

Acronis, Veeam and Backupify all back up email, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams automatically. Budget £5-10 per user per month. Set it up once, let it run quietly, and know your business data is recoverable whatever happens.

8. Keep your chat and video tools simple

If you chose Microsoft 365 you already have Microsoft Teams — video calls, chat, channels and file sharing in one place. It is not the prettiest tool ever built, but it works and it saves you another subscription.

If you chose Google Workspace you get Google Meet for video and Google Chat for messaging. Both are functional, if less rich than Teams for team collaboration.

Some startups prefer Slack for chat, which is genuinely good at keeping conversations organised, and Zoom for video, still the most reliable for external client meetings. The cost is the catch: Slack Pro is about £6 per user per month and Zoom Business about £10.

What we would do: start with what your productivity platform includes. If Teams or Meet does the job, that is one fewer subscription to manage. Add Slack or Zoom later if you genuinely miss them.

9. Sort your office internet and wifi

Fully remote? Skip this step and read our remote working IT guide instead.

Got an office? Three things matter.

Get business broadband. Residential connections are not built for business use. Business lines give you better upload speeds for video calls and cloud uploads, a static IP, and faster fault resolution. Expect £30-80 per month depending on speed and provider. A leased line with dedicated bandwidth costs £200-500 per month but guarantees your speeds, which is worth considering once you have 15 or more people in the office.

Separate your guest wifi. Set up a guest network apart from your business network. It takes ten minutes on most modern routers and keeps visitors and personal phones off the network your business devices use. Small step, real difference.

Upgrade your access points as you grow. Your ISP’s router is usually fine for a small office. Past 10-15 people, or in a larger space, move to business-grade access points from Ubiquiti, Meraki or Aruba for reliable coverage.

10. Earn Cyber Essentials to open doors with bigger clients

Cyber Essentials is a UK government-backed certification proving your business meets a baseline of IT security. You may not need it immediately, but keep it on your radar because:

• Some clients require it. Bidding for government contracts, or working with larger enterprises in financial services or healthcare, often means Cyber Essentials is a minimum.
• It sets you apart. The certification shows prospective clients you take security seriously.
• It is achievable. Follow this checklist and you are most of the way there already. The basic certification is a self-assessment questionnaire, and IASME set the fee on a fixed scale by organisation size.

No need to rush it on day one. Just remember it as you grow. It is easier to earn than most people expect, especially when your foundations are solid.

Getting the foundations right, then forgetting about them

That is your IT setup checklist. None of it is rocket science, and most of it takes a day or two. The value is in doing it properly at the start, rather than bolting things on once your team has already learned bad habits with passwords, files and devices.

If you would like help setting any of this up, or you would rather hand the whole thing to people who do it daily, get in touch. We work with startups and growing businesses across London and can have your foundations in place faster than you might expect.