Technology budgets can be one of the most difficult accounting tasks you do all year. It seems to be a fact of life that they were made to be broken. However, there are a number of ways that you can keep your business in the black when it comes to technology. One of the main ways to do it is by having a full understanding of your most common technology-related expenses. Here are three technological expenses that usually come up during the fiscal year.

Operations

When it comes to technology operating expenses, it might come as a surprise to you that smaller companies often spend more than larger companies. They often have to account for such things as monthly IT subscriptions and software audits. Of course, not all companies are prone to a software audit, but if you have equipment that is likely to be audited you should allow for that expense in your budget. Moreover, don’t let your monthly IT subscription just be taken out of your debit card without paying attention. Budget for it ahead of time!

Licensing and Compliance

A major part of your company will be licensing and compliance issues. For most companies, this will mean PCI issues. According to Merchant One, maintaining PCI compliance can run upwards of $1000 per month in costs. A large part of this expense will come from a routine PCI compliance audit, which is a checkup of whether all of their point-of-sale systems and cardholder interfaces are completely secure.

Backup and Disaster Recovery

You will often have to include backup and disaster recovery as one important technological expense. First of all, you likely will need to lease out to a cloud computing service in order to ensure that your data isn’t destroyed in a denial-of-service attack. According to Storage Craft, a cloud service is a good place to back things up. Cloud service will store your data in an off-site location, allowing you to retrieve it if such an attack happens. If a company wants to pay a bit more, they often can get a deluxe cloud computing package that will allow them to archive old files as well.

As you can see, some of these technological expenses are things that you simply cannot live without in today’s world. Of course, there are other expenditures that are necessary as well, such as having a professionally designed website. Whatever your business is, just make sure you plan your technology budget ahead of time to ensure you are fully prepared for every possible technology business expense.