Backing Up Your Company Data

How do I? | Restore from a Backup | Data Protection Strategy

Note: Data backups can be done only from the Server Workstation. There is no need to do backups on client workstations.

The data that you gather during day-to-day business operations is invaluable and must be protected. Power failure, media defects, disgruntled employees, or hardware problems can corrupt or destroy your company information. Backing up your data on a regular basis enables you to recover from such events as quickly and painlessly as possible. Failure to do so puts your entire business at risk.

Point of Sale provides several backup and restore features:

- An automatic backup is made once a day when the Server Workstation exits the program or at a specific time that you schedule; the most recent ten backup files are maintained

- Backups are also made or suggested by Point of Sale anytime you run certain data-related tasks, such as when installing program updates, running the Clean Up Data utility, or importing data

- You have the option to include making a backup in your End of Day procedure and the ability to make manual backups at anytime to the default or an alternate location

- If necessary, you can restore your company data from any available backup file; Point of Sale will automatically suggest the most recent backup to the default location for the restore

- (Pro) You can optionally include item pictures in your backup (will increase backup time and file size)

For maximum protection, it is recommended that you do regular backups to removable media that you store off-site.

If you create a backup while other workstations are still using Point of Sale, only those transactions that have been updated (saved) are included in the backup file. We recommend that all workstations complete and save any pending transactions before a backup is made.

It is important to note that Point of Sale only backs up your Point of Sale data. Therefore, it should serve as only one component of a comprehensive data protection strategy. You must take separate action to back up other important information for your business (QuickBooks Desktop financial software records, payroll records, other applications, etc.).

Related Topics

Security rights for back up/restore

Backup file names and location

Scheduling third-party backup applications