IT management tools

For a couple of hundred devices, free tools plus what already comes with Microsoft 365 Business Premium go a long way. Paid platforms justify their cost once you want packaged compliance reporting, a vendor to call or a fleet running into several hundred endpoints.

A spreadsheet is out of date the day after someone fills it in. Automated scanning shows reality: which versions are running, where updates failed and which machines have had parts swapped. It also gives you the basis for licence reconciliation.

Server and network reachability, free disk space and whether last night's backup succeeded. Those four checks cover most outages that you would otherwise hear about from annoyed colleagues.