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My phone rings, and I\u2019m talking with a QuickBooks user about their catastrophe: QuickBooks won\u2019t open \u2013 it gets fatal errors \u2013 and the auditors are coming in two days.<\/p>\n
Me: \u201cHow is your backup situation?\u201d
\nCustomer: \u201cNot so good. I thought someone else was taking care of that, but it turns out that our last good backup was from about a year ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ouch.<\/p>\n
Customer: \u201cI\u2019ve got to get a solution here, or there\u2019s a good chance I\u2019ll get fired.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to overstate the importance of accounting data to a business. But it\u2019s easy to treat it so casually, especially when it comes to having a good backup process in place.<\/p>\n
So here are some principles to put into practice. They can save you headaches, and just maybe, your job.<\/p>\n
1.\tMake frequent backups of current data<\/strong><\/p>\n How often should you backup QuickBooks? Well, how much data would you like to rekey? There\u2019s your answer. If you wouldn\u2019t mind rekeying a week\u2019s worth of data, then weekly backups are OK for you.<\/p>\n 2.\tMake other backups for permanent keeping<\/strong><\/p>\n Make a backup and store it permanently for these situations:<\/p>\n \u2022\tWhen you have finalized the books for the year Take these kinds of backups, label them descriptively (\u201cMycompany QB backup before 2010 upgrade\u201d), and<\/p>\n 3.\tStore your backups off-site<\/strong><\/p>\n If you have a fire in your workplace, what good would your on-site backup do you? Take your backups home or put them in your safe deposit box.<\/p>\n 4.\tFigure out what backup method works best for you<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022\tOnline backup service<\/p>\n Intuit has one, and there are lots of 3rd party backup services out there now. Most cost a nominal monthly fee (Intuit\u2019s starts at $4.95\/month). When you put your backup in \u2018the cloud\u2019, you don\u2019t have to worry about the physical protection of the backup anymore. And if you schedule a regular backup this way, it\u2019s probably the most worry-free and automatic way. You can fit a lot of data on a 32GB thumb drive, and they are very affordable. You can password-protect the drive for more security. And just keep the drive in your purse or pocket, so your backup goes offsite automatically when you do. If your data lives on the server, and the server automatically gets backed up, then that\u2019s easy. Just make sure that the server backups go somewhere offsite. I talk to people sometimes who only have backups on the server, which then crashes\u2026<\/p>\n 5. One more quick tip: If QuickBooks ever crashes on you, make a quick backup of your damaged data before you try to restore any of your backups<\/strong>. (Obviously, don\u2019t overwrite any of your good backups.) If you need to get your data repaired, we prefer to work first on your most current version of damaged data. So save it off before you overwrite it with older backups.<\/p>\n
\n\u2022\tBefore you upgrade to a newer version
\n\u2022\tBefore you archive\/condense<\/p>\n
\n\u2022\tUSB drive<\/p>\n
\n\u2022\tYour server<\/p>\nAuthors bio<\/h4>\n