A CPA firm can know whether it can recover after an outage only by proving it through a documented restoration test. A disaster recovery plan checklist should show what the firm must recover, which systems come first, how quickly each one must return, how much data the firm can afford to lose, who owns each action, and when the last successful test occurred. If your IT provider cannot show you recent test results and walk you through a realistic recovery sequence, you have backups, but you do not yet have reliable recovery.
Why a Disaster Recovery Plan Checklist Goes Beyond Backups
Backups matter, but they only give you a copy of your data. They do not guarantee that the copy is complete, clean, accessible, or fast to restore. They also do not rebuild the systems your people need to serve clients.
Think about recovery the way you think about recovering from pneumonia. Once the infection is gone, you still cannot run a marathon the next morning. In the same way, ending a cyberattack or replacing failed hardware does not mean your firm can immediately open tax software, reach email, retrieve client files, print returns, and resume normal work.
A backup answers one question: “Do we have another copy of the data?” A disaster recovery plan answers several harder questions:
- Where is the backup, and can we reach it if the primary system or cloud provider is unavailable?
- Is the backup protected from the same ransomware incident that damaged production data?
- Can we restore it to working hardware or a secure cloud environment?
- Which applications, permissions, integrations, and devices must we rebuild?
- How long will the full recovery take?
- How will we confirm that the restored data is correct?
That distinction matters for firms in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, and across the country. A failed server, monsoon-related power disruption, vendor incident, or ransomware attack can happen at any time. During busy season, even a short delay affects deadlines and client service.
Your disaster recovery plan checklist should include every system, application, file set, device, and cloud service that supports client work. Then rank them by criticality. Do not try to restore everything at once. Restore the systems that let the firm perform its most important work first. For most CPA firms, that inventory includes:
- Tax, audit, accounting, payroll, and practice management applications
- Client documents, workpapers, databases, and file shares
- Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, including email and collaboration tools
- Identity systems, multifactor authentication, accounts, and permissions
- Servers, workstations, firewalls, network equipment, and scanners
- Primary and backup internet connectivity and secure remote access
- Vendor-hosted platforms and any firm-controlled secondary backups
- Cyber insurance, incident-response, legal, and regulatory contact information
Cloud hosting does not remove your responsibility. Ask what the vendor backs up, how long it retains data, and what remains your firm’s responsibility. Do not put all your eggs in one basket. Know whether an independent, protected copy of critical data exists and how you would use it.
RTO: How Long Can the Firm Be Down?
The recovery time objective, or RTO, is the longest acceptable time between an outage and the restoration of a system. In plain English: How long can we operate without it?
Your RTO should reflect business impact, not a generic IT standard. Losing tax software for four hours two days before a filing deadline creates a larger problem than losing a less critical system. Use staffing costs, lost billable work, deadline exposure, and client commitments to set a realistic limit.
RPO: How Much Work Can the Firm Lose?
The recovery point objective, or RPO, defines the acceptable amount of lost data, measured in time. If the last usable backup came from 6 p.m. yesterday and the system failed at noon today, the firm could lose 18 hours of changes. Can your team recreate that work and identify what changed?
RPO determines how often you need backups. A daily backup may work for one system, while a high-volume client database may require much more frequent protection. The answer depends on how much work the firm can afford to redo.
Use the Disaster Recovery Plan Checklist with Your IT Provider
Your IT provider should not wait for you to become a backup expert. I compare this relationship to a physician and patient. You should ask questions, but the professional should recommend the tests, run them, interpret the results, and explain them.
Ask your provider these direct questions:
- What do you back up, and what do you exclude?
- Where do you store each backup, and is one copy isolated from our main environment?
- How frequently do backups run, and how long do you retain them?
- How do you monitor failed or incomplete backup jobs?
- What are the RTO and RPO for each critical system?
- In what order would you restore our systems?
- Can you start a temporary image of our server in a secure cloud environment if the physical server fails?
- When did you last restore our data, and what did the test prove?
- Can we review the written test report, exceptions, and corrective actions?
- Who leads recovery after hours, during a cyber incident, or when our normal contact is unavailable?
Listen for specific answers. “We have good backups” and “our response time is fast” do not define success. Ask what “good” and “fast” mean in hours, minutes, systems, and accountable roles.
A proactive provider should bring this information to you. During regular reviews, the provider should explain backup status, test outcomes, new risks, unresolved failures, and changes that affect recovery. If nobody discusses recovery until you ask, treat that silence as a warning sign.
Test Restores Every Quarter
I recommend a restoration test every quarter. The test should do more than confirm that a backup job produced a green checkmark. It should restore selected data or a system into a safe test environment, open the files or applications, compare the restored information with the expected source, and document the result.
Testing is necessary because problems remain hidden until someone tries to recover. A backup may be corrupted. Credentials may have expired. Encryption keys may be missing. A vendor may have changed a platform. Recovery may depend on one unavailable person.
Ask for evidence that shows:
- The test date and the person or role responsible
- The backup source and recovery point used
- What the team restored and where it restored it
- The time required to complete the restore
- The data-integrity checks performed
- Whether the result met the agreed RTO and RPO
- Any exceptions, owners, and correction deadlines
Pre-Busy-Season Disaster Recovery Plan Checklist
CPA firms should complete a formal review before busy season, but preparation starts when the previous busy season ends. At Ma’atIT, I like a post-tax-season review to understand:
- What slowed the team down?
- Where did the firm lose time?
- What must change before the next filing rush?
Use this disaster recovery plan checklist 30 to 60 days before your peak period:
- Update the inventory of systems, cloud services, vendors, devices, and data.
- Rank systems in the order the firm needs them restored.
- Confirm a business-approved RTO and RPO for every critical system.
- Verify backup frequency, retention, encryption, isolation, and monitoring.
- Confirm that recent backup jobs completed without unresolved errors.
- Review the latest quarterly restoration report and close open issues.
- Run a realistic restore of critical files, applications, or a server image.
- Test backup internet, remote work, and secure access procedures.
- Confirm after-hours contacts, escalation paths, and response commitments.
- Review cyber insurance notification requirements and incident-response contacts.
- Assign responsibilities by role and name a backup for each role.
- Confirm a secondary communication method that does not depend on email or Teams.
- Walk leaders through a ransomware, cloud outage, internet failure, or server-loss scenario.
- Record lessons, owners, deadlines, and the date of the next test.
Recovery plans support a business continuity plan, but the two plans do different jobs. Recovery restores technology and data. Continuity explains how the firm keeps serving clients while recovery happens. Use this checklist, Business Continuity Plan for CPA Firms, so operational decisions, communications, alternate work arrangements, and technology restoration support one another.
Warning Signs That Recovery May Fail
Warning signs often appear before an emergency. Your plan may fail if no one can state the last restore-test date, your provider only reports successful backup jobs, the plan does not cover cloud services, recovery depends on one person, RTO and RPO remain undefined, or the documented steps no longer match the firm’s technology.
Other red flags include backups connected to the environment they protect, no alternate internet option, no restoration order, and no evidence that restored files open correctly. A plan can also fail when leaders assume a vendor owns every part of recovery without checking the contract.
If a real recovery starts to fail, do not improvise silently. Activate the incident leader, preserve logs and evidence, contact your IT and cybersecurity resources, and notify your cyber insurer according to the policy. Bring in legal counsel when the event may involve protected data or reporting duties. Communicate confirmed facts through the plan’s approved channels and document decisions as the team works.
Then follow the restoration priorities. Your firm may start a protected server image in the cloud while the team rebuilds equipment, or employees may shift to secure remote work. These options only save time if you tested them before the emergency.
After service returns, conduct a post-incident review. Compare actual recovery time and data loss with the targets, identify every point of friction, assign corrective actions, and test again. A failed test gives you a chance to improve. A failed recovery during busy season gives you deadlines, cost, client frustration, legal questions, and reputation risk at the same time.
Put a Dollar Amount on Your Recovery Requirements
The right recovery investment starts with one practical question: How much does downtime cost your firm? Lost billable time tells only part of the story. Include overtime, deadline pressure, client communication, technical recovery, legal and insurance costs, possible premium increases, public-relations support, and lost trust.
Use Ma’atIT’s downtime calculator to compare outage scenarios, including a short interruption and a multi-day recovery during busy season. Then use those numbers to challenge your disaster recovery plan checklist. Are your RTO, RPO, backup design, testing schedule, and IT response commitments strong enough for the financial exposure you just calculated?
If the answer is no, Ma’atIT can help you turn the gaps into a practical recovery plan built around how your CPA firm works.
Fady Salama, President
Fady Salama is the Founder and CEO of Ma’atIT, where he helps businesses align technology with profitability and growth. With a strategic, numbers-driven approach, Fady works as a fractional CIO for his clients, going beyond IT support to build smarter roadmaps, reduce waste, and drive measurable business results.