Clear Path step · Business · Accounts you know and control

Move the business onto business accounts on your own domain

Set onceAbout 240 minNowWith your team

The business owns its domain and its email, so it can require strong sign-in and take access back when someone leaves.

Why it matters: With personal email accounts, the business can't enforce MFA, can't take access back when someone leaves and can't recover an account that's taken over. A business plan on your own domain puts the keys back in the business's hands.

On your path if you picked “Personal email accounts (Gmail, Outlook.com)” for “What runs your business?”.

Do it

  1. Confirm the business owns its domain name, registered in the business's name with MFA on the registrar account; register one if you don't have it.
  2. Choose a business email plan, such as Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and create an account for each person, plus shared mailboxes for addresses like info@ instead of shared logins.
  3. Move existing mail, contacts and files from the personal accounts into the new business accounts.
  4. Change the login email on business accounts, such as the bank, payroll, accounting, domain registrar, social media and vendors, to the new business addresses.
  5. Forward the old personal addresses to the new ones for a few months, tell clients and vendors about the change, and keep the old accounts secured with MFA rather than deleting them straight away.

Say this: If a work login still runs through a personal email, I move it to a business address.

Check it worked: Everyone uses an email address on a domain the business owns, through a business email plan the business controls, and personal Gmail, Outlook.com or iCloud addresses no longer run the business or its logins.

Simply put

Running a business on personal email is like keeping the shop's keys on an employee's own key ring. Business accounts on your own domain mean the business can require MFA, take access back and recover a hijacked account.

In detail

This is the structural fix that makes most other business steps possible: admin-enforced MFA, same-day offboarding, email authentication on your domain and business-grade AI terms all depend on the business owning the accounts. Old personal addresses often remain the recovery email for business accounts, so update recovery details as well as login addresses.

If this is new to you: Sounds like a big move? Take it in stages: domain first, then accounts, then logins at the bank and vendors. Keep the old addresses forwarding for a few months.

Points toward the Long View: a business that owns its own keys, from the domain to every login.

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