Free workplace tool
Business Continuity Plan Template for Small Business
Answer a short set of practical questions about how your business runs and generate a business continuity plan in plain English — ready to review, print, and share with your team.
This is a practical planning document for small business owners. It is not legal advice, an insurance requirement, an audit, or a certification. Adapt every section to your business and check any obligations that apply to your industry or country.
About this free template
What it creates
A written business continuity plan for one business, in plain English: critical functions, dependencies and single points of failure, systems and data, first-24-hours response steps, continuity arrangements, communication, priority actions and a review schedule.
Who should use it
Owners and managers of small businesses — retail, hospitality, warehousing, workshops, trades, clinics and professional services — who need something written down before the next outage, flood, cyber incident or supplier failure.
What information you need
A few minutes and some basic facts: what your business cannot stop doing, what it depends on, how long it could be down, your backup position, and how you would reach staff. No account, no payment, and no personal data about individual employees are required.
What it is not
It is not legal advice, an audit, an insurance requirement or a certification. Nothing here makes a business certified or compliant — it is a practical planning document you own and adapt.
Next step
A continuity plan records what you already know. To find out where your business is actually exposed, take a Business Readiness Score assessment and work through the prioritised actions it produces.
Business continuity questions small businesses ask
- What is a business continuity plan?
- A business continuity plan is a short written document that says how a business keeps its most important work going during a disruption — a power outage, flood, cyber incident, supplier failure, or the loss of a key person — and how it returns to normal afterwards. For a small business it is usually a few pages, not a manual.
- What should a small business continuity plan template include?
- At minimum: your critical business functions, the dependencies that could stop them, how long you can be down before it hurts, your data and systems position, the first steps to take in the first 24 hours, your continuity arrangements, how you contact staff and suppliers, a short list of priority actions, and a review date.
- Is this template free?
- Yes. The generator is free, needs no account and no payment, and produces a plan you can print or save as a PDF straight away.
- How is this different from the paid readiness assessments?
- This template writes down what you already know about your business. A WorkplaceReady Readiness Assessment goes further: it scores your operational readiness for a specific risk such as heat, power outage, flood or cybersecurity, and gives you a prioritised action plan you can track over time.
- How often should a continuity plan be reviewed?
- At least once a year, and again after any real disruption or any change of site, system, supplier or key staff. Choose a review frequency in the form and the generated plan carries the next review date.
- Can I print the generated plan?
- Yes. After generating, use the Print button for a clean printable version — headers, navigation and calls to action are hidden so you are left with the plan itself.
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