Free IT resources for BC and Alberta business owners. No email gate.
Compliance checklists, budgeting worksheets, cyber insurance prep guides, and frameworks we use internally. Take what you need.
Most IT resources are locked behind a form because the document is a pretext for a drip campaign. These are not. Everything in this library is free to read, download, and use, no form submission, no follow-up email, no obligation.
We publish these because a business owner who understands their IT environment makes better decisions. Whether they work with us is secondary.
Four guides we hand to every new client.
BC SMB Compliance Guide 2026
PIPEDA, CASL, and BC PIPA boiled down to what a small business in British Columbia actually needs to do. Written for owners and operations managers, not lawyers. Covers data handling, consent, breach reporting, and marketing compliance. Use it to check your obligations before engaging a privacy lawyer.
Read the guide →Cyber Insurance Questionnaire Guide 2026
A walkthrough of every control insurers ask about on a standard cyber insurance application: what each control means, how to implement it, and how to answer honestly. Use it before your renewal conversation with your broker, or as a security gap analysis.
Read the guide →SMB IT Budget Worksheet
Per-user annual IT budgeting for hardware, software licensing, security, managed services, and capital expenditure. Built for 5-to-50-user organisations in Western Canada, with line items for Microsoft 365, backup, endpoint security, and project reserves. Use it when building your annual IT plan.
See the worked budget →First 90 Days of Managed IT Playbook
What good MSP onboarding looks like: the milestones to expect, the documentation you should receive, and the warning signs your new provider is disorganised or cutting corners. Use it to hold your MSP accountable, whether that is North Star or anyone else.
Read the playbook →Prefer a tool over a document?
Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is sent or stored.
IT Budget Calculator
Users, tier, licensing, and hardware in. A realistic monthly and annual budget range out.
Open the calculator →Cyber Insurance Readiness Scorecard
Ten questions matching what insurers actually ask, scored with a fix-first list.
Take the assessment →PIPEDA Breach Decision Tree
Walk a privacy incident step by step and get your obligation checklist.
Start the walkthrough →More from our library: read the Insights blog for deep dives, browse the IT Guides & Glossary for plain-English explainers, weigh options with our provider and tool comparisons, or see how North Star Email Protection stops phishing before it reaches your team. All free tools live at /tools/.
If a resource raises questions you cannot answer, that is useful information: it means there is a gap in your current IT coverage worth looking at. These resources are starting points. For a real read on your specific environment, a free IT assessment is the fastest path to a concrete answer: a senior North Star engineer reviews your environment on a 30-minute video call and delivers a written findings document within two business days. No obligation. Book below or call 672-983-1174.
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Rules change. These are the bodies that publish them, so you can check the current text rather than take our summary for it.