September is National Preparedness Month, and while that conversation usually focuses on hurricane kits and evacuation plans here in Louisiana, it's worth extending the same thinking to your business's financial readiness. A hurricane, a flood, or even a sudden equipment failure can shut a business down for days or weeks, and the businesses that recover fastest are almost always the ones that were financially prepared before the emergency happened.

Start with your records. If your books live only on a laptop sitting in an office that could flood, or on paper that could be destroyed, you're one bad storm away from losing the financial history you need to file insurance claims, apply for disaster relief, or simply understand where your business stood before the disruption. Cloud-based bookkeeping in Xero solves this specific problem, since your data isn't tied to a single physical location or device that could be damaged or lost.

Next, think through how you'd cover payroll and fixed expenses if the business couldn't generate revenue for a stretch of time, whether that's from a storm shutting down operations or a major piece of equipment failing at the worst possible time. This ties directly back to the cash reserve conversation from earlier this month. A reserve built for a slow season also happens to be a reserve that helps you weather a genuine emergency, which is one more reason it's worth having in place before you need it.

It's also worth knowing, ahead of time, what documentation you'd need to file a business interruption insurance claim if you have that coverage, or to apply for SBA disaster loans if a major event hits the region. Insurers and disaster loan programs both typically want clear financial records showing your business's normal revenue and expenses, which is far easier to produce from clean, current books than from a scramble after the fact.

None of us can control when the next storm season gets serious. What's within your control is whether your business's finances are positioned to survive the disruption when it happens.

Jeremy Brewer is the founder of 911 Bookkeepers LLC in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He worked in the field as an HVAC tech before building books for the trades, and he serves as a licensed paramedic in EMS. He is a Xero Certified Advisor.