Preventative IT Maintenance Checklist: 12 Monthly Tasks Every Business Should Do

Small and mid-sized businesses often skip regular IT maintenance until something breaks. That choice costs time, money, and reputation. A simple set of monthly tasks prevents most outages, reduces security risk, and keeps your systems running smoothly. Below is a practical, technician-friendly checklist you can run every 30 days — plus how to do each task, tools that help, and links to authoritative resources.

Why monthly maintenance matters (quick)

Monthly maintenance catches configuration drift, missed updates, backup failures, and creeping permission problems before they become emergencies. Following a repeatable routine also makes disaster recovery predictable and testable. For patching and update policy guidance, see NIST’s enterprise patch management guide. (NIST CSRC)

The 12 monthly tasks (with what to check and how)

1) Patch management: verify updates were applied and remediate exceptions

What to do: confirm OS and application patches were installed across servers, workstations, network gear, and commonly used SaaS apps. Prioritize critical and public-facing systems.
How: run your patch management dashboard, filter for failed installs, schedule reboots or manual installs, and document exceptions with mitigation (compensating controls). NIST provides a step-by-step framework for enterprise patching. (NIST Publications)

2) Backups: test restore from recent backups

What to do: verify backups completed successfully and perform at least one restore test (file, database, or VM) to confirm recoverability. Check backup logs, retention policies, and offsite copies.
How: pick a sample of high-value files and a critical application database, run a restore to an isolated environment, confirm integrity and timeliness. Follow backup testing best practices to cover RTO and RPO expectations. (TechTarget)

3) Firewall and perimeter device audit

What to do: review firewall rules for stale or overly permissive entries, confirm firmware is current, and validate NAT and VPN configs. Remove rules that allow broad any-any access.
How: use your firewall management console to sort rules by last used and by source/destination. Keep a change log and require approvals for new rules. SANS publishes a practical firewall audit checklist you can use. (SANS Institute)

4) Antivirus / EDR health check and scanning verification

What to do: confirm endpoint protection/EDR agents are running, definitions are current, and there are no unresolved detections. Run a full scan policy on a sample of devices monthly.
How: check central EDR dashboard for offline agents, quarantine items, and policy drift. Escalate any recurring detections for deeper investigation.

5) Intrusion detection and logging review

What to do: check IDS/IPS and SIEM alerts, confirm logging pipelines are healthy, and review high-priority events from the last 30 days. Resolve false positives and tune rules.
How: validate that logs from firewalls, servers, endpoints, and cloud services are being collected and retained. Tune alerts to reduce noise while keeping high-confidence notifications. The SANS Critical Controls and IDS guidance are useful references. (SANS Institute)

6) Review user privileges and access recertification

What to do: perform an access review for administrative accounts, shared credentials, and third-party app access. Remove unneeded privileges and confirm MFA is enabled where appropriate.
How: produce an access list from Active Directory or your IAM solution, have managers attest to each user’s role and required access, and disable or remove stale accounts. Heimdal’s guide to user access reviews explains the process. (Heimdal Security)

7) Clean up network and file storage

What to do: remove old user profiles, archive or delete stale files, and reclaim storage. Check for uncontrolled file shares and orphaned folders.
How: use storage analytics or scripts to find files older than a policy threshold, establish archive locations, and document retention rules. Free up space before it causes app failures or backups to lengthen.

8) Hardware health checks (servers, switches, NAS)

What to do: review vendor hardware logs, SMART data for disks, RAID status, power supplies, and temperature alerts. Replace or schedule repair for failing components.
How: use built-in vendor tools (iLO, iDRAC, Synology DSM, etc.) and monitoring alerts. Document firmware revisions and plan maintenance windows for firmware upgrades.

9) Network performance review and monitoring checks

What to do: confirm uptime and latency metrics, review bandwidth usage, and investigate any persistent slow segments or saturated links. Ensure monitoring probes and alert thresholds are active.
How: review your NMS dashboards (PRTG, Site24x7, LogicMonitor, etc.), look for trends, and add capacity or QoS where needed. Recent vendor reviews can help pick appropriate tools for your environment. (TechRadar)

10) Disaster recovery plan (DRP) review and tabletop test

What to do: update the DR plan to reflect recent changes, validate contacts and vendor SLAs, and run a short tabletop test or simulated failover for a critical application.
How: pick one scenario each month (for example, a file server outage or loss of internet) and walk through responsibilities, recovery steps, and communications. The U.S. SBA and multiple DR checklists offer practical test ideas and templates. (Small Business Administration)

11) Documentation and policy updates

What to do: update runbooks, network diagrams, asset registers, and incident response steps. Ensure password vault entries, vendor contacts, and support procedures are current.
How: assign owner for each document, keep version history, and store docs where the team can access them during incidents. Documentation makes follow-up maintenance and audits faster.

12) Software license and patch compliance review

What to do: confirm licensing levels, subscription renewals, and compliance with vendor update requirements. Check for unsupported software that needs replacement.
How: inventory installed software, match against purchase records, and plan upgrades or migrations for end-of-life products.

Quick monthly checklist (printable)

Patch management dashboard — failures: ______
Backup jobs run: ✅ Restore test performed: ✅ (describe) __________
Firewall rules reviewed — changes made: ______
EDR / AV agent health: ______
IDS/SIEM top alerts reviewed: ______
User privilege recertification status: ______
Storage cleanup — reclaimed ______ GB
Hardware alerts checked: ______
Network alerts/latency issues: ______
DR tabletop/test results: ______
Documentation updated: Y/N — note changes ______
Licensing compliance review: ______

Frequently Asked Questions

What is included in IT maintenance?

IT maintenance includes updates, backups, security checks, access reviews, and equipment health monitoring to keep systems secure and reliable.

How often should businesses do IT maintenance?

Critical items like backups and security alerts should be monitored daily, but a full preventive maintenance checklist should be done monthly.

Why are software updates important?

Updates patch security vulnerabilities, fix bugs, and improve system stability—delaying them leaves networks exposed.

How do I know if my backups are working?

Run a restore test monthly. If you can restore files quickly and completely, your backups are working. Logs alone aren’t enough.

What is the difference between IT maintenance and IT support?

Maintenance is proactive—preventing issues through regular checks. Support is reactive—fixing problems after they occur.

Can small businesses handle IT maintenance themselves?

Some tasks can be handled in-house with the right tools and knowledge, but many SMBs rely on managed service providers for consistent coverage and expertise.

Tools and automation suggestions

Patch management: WSUS, Intune, ManageEngine Patch Manager, or commercial RMM tools. See NIST for process guidance. (NIST Publications)
Backups: Veeam, Acronis, Rubrik, MSP360 — always automate but test restores manually. (MSP360)
Firewall audits: use rule analysis and the SANS checklist. (SANS Institute)
Monitoring: Site24x7, LogicMonitor, PRTG, Datadog — choose based on scale and budget. (TechRadar)

Prioritizing tasks

Critical (monthly, must be green): backups restore, patching for high-severity issues, EDR health.
High: firewall rules, IDS alerts, user access reviews.
Medium: storage cleanup, hardware checks, documentation.

Assign an owner for each task and keep a simple ticket or runbook entry so nothing gets missed.

When monthly is not enough

Some items need daily or weekly checks (backup job success, critical alerts) and some need quarterly or annual attention (full DR drills, architecture review). Use the monthly cadence for the items listed and augment with more frequent automated checks where possible.