The Accounts Your Business Runs On
List every account your business runs on. Put your own name, card and login on each one, and check what they connect to.
By James Schramko · Updated October 2026
Own the Racecourse tells you to build on assets you own and use rented platforms to reach people. This playbook goes one layer down. You can still lose an asset you own. It happens when the account carries someone else's name, an expired card, or a login you never held. It happens when it is still connected to a tool you stopped using years ago.
Five Questions for Every Account
Ask these about each account your business needs. The domain, the hosting, the email platform and the payment processor. The ad accounts, the pixel, the CRM and the booking tool. The company records, the bank, and the software you deliver the work with.
Whose name is on the account? Whose card is on file? Who holds the login and the recovery method? What is it connected to? What happens the day it is switched off?
Most founders can answer the first question for the bank and the last question for nothing. The gaps are where the money goes.
The Card on File
I held a domain for eight years. When a buyer finally turned up at $1,699, I went to transfer it and found it had lapsed. The Amex on file had expired and the renewal had failed. Nobody told me in a way I noticed. Eight years of holding an asset, lost to a card I forgot to update.
Every account with a recurring charge has a card on file, and every card expires. Put the expiry dates in the same calendar you use for tax. It takes an hour once a year.
The Login Someone Else Holds
I've seen owners who barely knew where their own website was. An agency held the leads, the pages and the ad account somewhere the owner couldn't reach. Once the owner took the logins back, they rebuilt the whole thing in days.
Does an agency, freelancer or old partner hold a login to your customers or your money? Get it into your name this week. Give them access from your account. Don't rely on having access from theirs. That choice decides who owns the business the day the relationship ends.
The same goes for access on a team member's computer. I've watched hackers get into one team member's laptop and spend client ad money in a matter of hours. I've been through my own version too. A fake login one letter off the real one took my email and my authenticator. I clawed it back in three minutes because an access ping from Canada tipped me off.
Years earlier, a different set of crooks spent about $18,000 of my ad budget on Persian rugs. Use hardware keys for every login that moves money. Set clearance levels so one hacked laptop can't reach everything.
The Connection You Forgot
Old connections between tools don't switch themselves off. A cart tool you hooked up to your payments years ago can start cancelling paying members on its own. No cancellation emails go out, so the first sign is a spike in your numbers.
Every connection between two tools is a door, and a door you forgot is still open. When you list the accounts, list what each one is connected to. Disconnect anything that no longer earns its place.
My first recurring membership, back in 2009, ran its payments through PayPal. When I finally closed it years later, I found about 130 people still listed as members. They hadn't paid their $100 a month for two or three years. A glitch had been failing the payment without removing them.
From then on, a VA checked the paying members against every PayPal and Stripe payment, twice a month. That check most likely saved hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. It costs an hour a fortnight.
The Plan That Gets Switched Off
I nearly lost every podcast episode I had recorded since 2009. I changed hosting plans, and the host switched off the old plan. The files were mine in every way but one. They sat on someone else's server.
A friend had his email platform account banned over a single test email. A membership I coached for years was built entirely on Google Plus. It vanished when Google shut it down. In each case the asset was real and the container was rented.
For every account on your list, write down what happens the day it is switched off. If the answer is "I lose the files," export them today and keep a copy somewhere you control. If the answer is "I lose the customers," get the customer list outside that tool before the week is out.
The Database in the Safe
When I ran Mercedes-Benz dealerships, the dealer audit required the customer database to be printed. It was locked in a fireproof safe on site. I would open the safe and show the auditors a printout from the last few months. Failing that check cost hundreds of thousands in bonuses.
The reason was simple. With that printout, someone could start contacting those clients and set up a rival business tomorrow. The customer record is the most important asset the business owns.
Your version of the safe is an export of your customer list. Keep it in a plain file any program can open, somewhere no one account controls. Refresh it monthly. If every platform you use disappeared tonight, that file is the business.
The Audit
Do this once, then quarterly.
Open a sheet. Down the left, list every account the business runs on. Across the top, add these columns: name on the account, card on file and its expiry, and who holds the login. Then the recovery method, what it connects to, and what is lost if it is switched off.
Fill it in. Every cell you can't fill is an action. Every account in someone else's name moves into yours. Every card past or near expiry gets replaced. Every login you don't hold gets handed over, and from then on you grant access outward. Every connection you no longer use gets cut. Every "I lose the data" cell gets an export this week.
Then the payment check. Paying members against actual payments, twice a month, by someone who is not you.
Quick Reference
- Five questions for every account: whose name, whose card, who holds the login, what it connects to, what happens when it is switched off.
- Put card expiry dates in the tax calendar. An expired card lost me an eight-year domain.
- Hold every login yourself and grant access outward. Whoever holds the login owns the business the day the relationship ends.
- Hardware keys and clearance levels for anything that moves money. One hacked laptop should reach one thing.
- List every connection between tools and cut the ones you no longer use. A forgotten one can cancel paying members on its own.
- Check paying members against real payments twice a month. A payment glitch hid 130 non-paying members from me for years.
- Keep an export of the customer list outside every platform. That file is the business.
Founders who join Mentor run this audit early. The cheapest week to find a problem account is the week before it bites.