The newsletter account belongs to one colleague, advertising access sits with a former supplier, and the domain was registered years ago using a personal address. This arrangement can remain unnoticed while everything works. Illness, staff changes or a locked account can turn it into an operational problem. An access inventory and clear responsibilities prevent important accounts from depending on memory alone.
Start an inventory without putting passwords in it. Record the system, its business purpose, the responsible person, authorised users and the protected location of recovery information. The inventory should reveal who can act and where gaps exist. It should not become an unprotected collection of secrets.
Organise critical accounts first
Prioritise accounts on which other access depends. These can include business email, domain administration and central file storage. Losing one of them can make recovery of other services harder. Review dependencies rather than treating each marketing tool as an isolated account.
For every important account, answer three questions: who owns the responsibility internally, who may make changes, and how can the business continue if that person is unavailable? A sole trader may need a different protected emergency arrangement from a larger team. What matters is a deliberate approach that matches the organisation.
Use individual sign-ins
Where a tool provides roles and invitations, give each participant individual access. Permissions can then be changed selectively. A shared password makes it harder to establish who still has access or who made a particular change.
Choose roles according to tasks. Someone reading reports does not automatically need administrative rights. Someone editing copy may not need to change billing details. Read the role descriptions for the actual product because similar labels can grant different powers.
A suitable password manager can help with separate passwords. The German BSI identifies password managers and additional authentication factors as account-security measures. Select and configure the approach for the business's requirements rather than distributing credentials in ordinary emails or openly shared documents.
Plan recovery before it is needed
Check the recorded recovery methods. Is the email address current? Does the telephone number still belong to the appropriate person? Are recovery codes kept somewhere protected and findable? Additional sign-in protection must be accompanied by a plan for losing the device used to authenticate.
Test the intended cover arrangement with a low-impact task, such as opening a report. Do not unnecessarily change security settings during the test. Its purpose is to establish whether the authorised replacement can work and which instructions are missing. Record that the test occurred, not the secret credentials used.
Avoid storing all recovery information only inside the very account that might need recovery. A printed copy is also unsuitable if left openly beside a workstation. The chosen arrangement should protect against unauthorised access while permitting legitimate emergency use.
Discuss the recovery process with the people expected to use it. A technically sound arrangement can still fail operationally if nobody knows it exists. The instructions should identify the responsible contact and the permitted process without making secrets broadly accessible.
Treat joining and leaving as processes
At the start of an engagement, define tasks, roles and any expiry date. At its end, do more than remove a visible user. Check linked applications, automated notifications and processes running under that person's account. The required steps depend on the service involved.
Transfer ongoing work before closing access. A scheduled message or shared report may otherwise become difficult to manage. After removal, an authorised person should confirm that business access still works and the former user no longer appears in the relevant permission lists.
Review the inventory periodically and after staff or supplier changes. Mark accounts without an owner as an outstanding task rather than leaving the gap implicit. A maintained access process saves searching and makes it possible to establish which people can currently act on behalf of the business.
