I'm writing this column at the eleventh hour. It was due last Monday but I was given an extension until today, Friday, because of a death in my family last week. Then I came down with some virus that made everything I did secondary to how I felt. I'm feeling ok now so I thought I'd have a try at blasting out this month's words of wisdom.

The events of the last week-and-a-half have caused me to think about how our budding enterprise would manage if a key person were no longer able to function, either short term or long term. Because entrepreneurs wear many (or all) of the hats for their business the slightest interruption in their ability to function can cause a major blip in the day to day operations.

I had to be out of the office for only a couple of days but in that time a couple of payables were made late (obviously not much but it still bugged me) and a decision affecting delivery of our new packaging was delayed. This caused us to scramble for a temporary container so that we could continue shipping product. Customers called for information but had to wait since our customer service person (my wife Sandi) was also out of the office. Family businesses have some great things going for them but a family funeral can shut things down for several days.

If you are running the show for your new business venture, could the business function while you were in the hospital for gall bladder surgery? Would you have to put the whole thing on hold while you took care of family matters after a death in the family? No one likes to think of these things when they happen, let alone when things are going smoothly. Yet things happen and it makes sense to plan for the worse before the worse happens.

For my part I'm going to make sure that the critical things that I take care of on a day-to-day basis are well documented. I will make a list of tasks, procedures and just general knowledge that I have accumulated over the past two years that some else can read and understand. I know that I have been guilty of not properly documenting things. During the normal lunacy that prevails around here, it is easy to delay documenting all those things that should be documented. Until I take the time to do this, I wouldn't even be able to take a week's vacation.

Our customer base, order entry, receivables and invoicing have recently been computerized. Since I did the work myself using Alpha Four (a relational database program), I know how it works and where it needs to be improved. Until I document my work and make the user interface foolproof, I will remain a necessary part of the software. This is not good. It is a business interruption waiting to happen.

Purchasing is another area where we need clarify and expand the present documentation. Purchase orders and invoices provide a paper trail of where parts and supplies were ordered, but if something happened to me, it would take a month to figure out what was what. When to order material, in what quantities and from whom needs to be clearly spelled out. So necessary, so obvious, yet so easy to let slide when you are fighting to make your new business a success.

I will also be investigating when it makes sense to insure a business against catastrophes, such as loss of a key person. In fact I think business insurance for start ups would make a great subject for a column or columns in this newsletter.

I think it is an entrepreneurial requirement to be able to keep a lot of detail in your head. But it is also necessary to teach and to delegate in order to take the business out of the startup phase and transform it into a viable, ongoing business. When starting out it makes sense to keep things as simple as possible. Unnecessary forms and procedures can choke a business. There comes a time, however, when controls are necessary and the lack of proper documentation and delegation become the bottleneck to growth.