It’s one of those things you know you should do, but are you being conscientious about it?
No one has to tell you that anytime you write something to your hard drive or post it on the internet, it’s at risk. Financial services companies are especially mindful of data security, and they use the best that’s available.
Still, things happen. Natural disasters like fires and floods. Malware. Viruses. Intentional tampering. QuickBooks training courses outline everything that can possibly happen to your data and how you can protect it.
So turn data backup from something you should do to something you are doing. Every day. Sometimes more than once a day. Learn how to use QuickBooks’ tools for safeguarding your critical company information.
Local Backups
We’ve been backing up data to storage devices (flash drives, CDs, etc.) for a long time. And it’s still a good idea to always have a recent version of your QuickBooks company file nearby.
QuickBooks makes it easy. Go to File | Back Up Company | Create Local Backup. The Create Backup screen gives you two options: Click the button next to Local backup, and then click the Options button. This dialog box opens:
You’ll define your options for backing up your QuickBooks data file locally in the Backup Options dialog box.
As you can see, you have to tell QuickBooks what your preferences are here. Click the Browse button first and select the desired location. Request a date and time stamp on the file by checking the box in front of that option, and check the next box if you want to limit the number of backups on any one storage device to a specific number.
Reminders are always good in QuickBooks, and backing up your data is one thing that’s easy to forget if you’re rushing away from the office. So anyone teaching QuickBooks classes would tell you to check the box next to the reminder statement and enter a number.
QuickBooks can check the data in your file for obvious problems when you save it. You have three options here:
- Complete verification, where QuickBooks does a thorough evaluation. Takes a little more time, and is not available in multi-user mode.
- Quicker verification only looks at the most important parts of your company file.
- No verification means, obviously, that no verification is done.
Click OK when you’re done, and you’ll be back at the Create Backup screen. Click Next, and this dialog box opens:
You’ll see this screen frequently if you’re conscientious about making local backups and doing them manually.
When you’re ready to create a local backup, click the button next to Save it now. The other two options let you save it and schedule future occurrences or just do the latter. Select the desired action and click Next. QuickBooks gives you the option here of doing an automatic backup every x times that you close your company file.
If you’re scheduling future backups, click New. A scheduling window will open, displaying your options. If you password-protect your computer, click Store Password so backups done outside of work time will succeed.
You can schedule backups to occur anytime, even when you’re not around.
When you’re done with this dialog box, click OK, then Finish. QuickBooks should take over now as far as automatic backups are concerned. Be sure to follow through if you’re on your own.
