QuickBooks 2011: The Missing Manual

Backing Up Files

If you already have a backup procedure for all your company data, QuickBooks’ Backup command might seem about as useful as your appendix. Your companywide backups regularly squirrel your data files away in a safe place, ready to rescue you should disaster strike. Still, QuickBooks’ Backup command can complement even the most robust backup plan. And if you run a mom-and-pop business, online backups let you back up all of your data without hiring an IT staff. Here are some ways you can put QuickBooks’ Backup command to work:

• Backing up one QuickBooks company file. Before you experiment with a new QuickBooks feature, you don’t want to back up all your data—just the company file. That way, if the experiment goes terribly wrong, you can restore your backup and try a different approach. You can also call on the QuickBooks’ Backup command when you’ve worked hard on your company file (pasting hundreds of inventory items into the file from Excel [Adding and Editing Multiple Customer Records], say) and the thought of losing that work makes you queasy. In both these situations, running a QuickBooks manual backup creates a backup file immediately.

• Scheduling backups of your QuickBooks data. If you have trouble remembering to back up your work, QuickBooks’ automatic backups have your back. You can set the program up to automatically back up a company file after you’ve opened it a certain number of times. Then, if you mangle your data or it gets corrupted in some way, you can use ...