The back office is where small businesses quietly lose hours every week. We hear it as:
- "Half the team uses personal Gmail. Customers get replies from three different addresses."
- "Our files are on one laptop, two Dropbox accounts and a USB stick."
- "We pay for twelve licences and have seven staff."
- "The new hire spent their first week waiting for logins."
- "Only one person knows how payroll works, and she's going on leave."
None of it is dramatic. All of it costs money, and some of it is a real risk.
What good looks like
Everyone has an email address on your own domain. Files live in one shared place with sensible permissions, not on someone's desktop. Licences match the people you actually have. Your accounting software pulls in bank transactions and payments automatically. A new hire has their account, laptop and access on day one. And the jobs that matter are written down as short step-by-step procedures, so the business doesn't stop when someone's away.
How we set it up
1. Take stock. We list every account, licence, device and subscription you pay for. Our prompt for tracking devices, software and renewals in one sheet is a good way to start on your own. Most offices find something to cancel.
2. Choose the right workspace. Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace? It depends on how your team works, what your clients use and which apps you rely on. We lay out the differences in Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace for a small business.
3. Move without losing anything. Email, calendars, contacts and files moved across with their history, usually over a weekend, so Monday starts normally.
4. Azure where it earns its place. Many small businesses never need more than Microsoft 365. When you do (company sign-in for every app, managing laptops remotely, hosting a business application, or off-site backups), we set up Azure with only what you need, so you're not surprised by the monthly bill.
5. Accounting set-up. We configure QuickBooks Online, Xero or similar with bank feeds, payment connections, invoice templates and polite late-payment reminders. Sales tax is set for Ontario HST and, if you bill Quebec clients, GST and QST. We work alongside your accountant; we don't replace them.
6. HR and onboarding. Job post templates, an interview scorecard, an offer letter, and a first-week checklist that creates every account from one list. Our prompts for hiring faster and onboarding a new employee show the approach.
7. SOPs your team will read. Short, clear procedures for the tasks that matter. The quickest method we know: record a voice note while you do the task, then turn it into a step-by-step SOP.
For businesses that sell to government
Plenty of Ottawa businesses sell to federal departments, and buyers increasingly ask suppliers how they protect data. Microsoft 365 can keep core business data in Canadian data centres, which simplifies those conversations. We document your set-up (who has access, where data lives, how it's backed up) so you can answer supplier security questionnaires with confidence. Privacy obligations under PIPEDA, and Law 25 if you have Quebec clients or staff, are built into how accounts and files are shared.
Why one team makes the systems hold together
Business systems touch everything else. With 1 Club, the same team that sets up your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace also:
- Switches on the security that should come with it: multi-factor authentication, sign-in protection and backups. It's not left for "the IT company" to discover later.
- Connects your calendars and mailboxes to the CRM and booking links, so appointments land where your team actually looks.
- Hands the new hire a laptop that's already enrolled and secured, with their accounts and CRM seat ready from the same onboarding list.
- Removes all of it in one go when someone leaves.
One onboarding list, one offboarding list, one team to call.
Three ways to start
1. Free, at your own pace. Use our prompts to choose the right software, find the tasks worth automating and build your renewals sheet.
2. Done with you. We plan the set-up and migration with you, and your team carries out the steps with our checklists and a check-in at each stage.
3. Done for you. We audit, move, configure, document and train. You get a short handover document and one number to call.