Backing up and Restoring a Data File in QuickBooks

This is a step-by-step blog post on how to backup and restore a data (company) file from one computer to another computer or if you have your bookkeeper work on it from her computer and she/he backs it up and sends it back to you to work in.*

*I do not recommend this practice.  I have seen many clients who have done this and end up saving the file to different folders or forgetting to restore it and working in an older file.  This causes them to have to working data files with transactions that need to be moved.  The only way to do that is with 3rd party software from Intuit's Markeplace.   Type in "Data transfer" in the top search box on the top right side of the page. The program by Karl Irvin comes highly recommended.  It should be the top program when you search by data transfer.

So, how do you backup and restore your file?  Here are the steps:  Open QuickBooks.  Go to file, backup and backup your data (company) file.

MOVING THE DATA (COMPANY FILE) TO A NEW COMPUTER:

Save it to your desktop or usb stick or a folder in your hard drive.  Somewhere you know you can find it.

Shown above,  I have saved it to my desktop.

Now go to the new computer.  Open QuickBooks.  Go to file, open or restore company file.  Select the restored file that you have moved to the new computer either by emailing it to yourself (see blog post on emailing larger files) or by using the USB stick or CD.  Select to save the company file to a QuickBooks file folder that you have created to hold all of your data files.  You can call it QuickBooks Data Files or Company files.

RESTORING OVER YOUR CURRENT VERSION OF QUICKBOOKS:

The next shot is a picture of what it would look like if you were just restoring over the old file in your old computer.  Since I used a sample file, QuickBooks defaulted to the file location automatically.  This is where this file resides by default on my computer.

Since I am restoring my backup over my working file on this computer, I will see the following warning screen:

I type in "Yes" to complete the override of the backup over my working data file.  This will erase the old file and make the restored backup my new working file.

That is it.  Those are the steps for either moving a data file to a new computer or taking a backup that is updated and making it your active working file and removing the older one.  

Like I stated in the beginning paragraph, it is much better to work with a remote program so you continuously work in one active file that is constantly updated.   But that being said, there are times when you need to send a backup and restore it as your working file.**  This is how to do if correctly so you will not be saving too many files on your computer and not using the most up-to-date one.  You are overwriting, so there will still only be one active file in the computer, if you follow the steps above.

**For example:  You may use this if your accountant has the same year version of QuickBooks and wants to work in your file, but he/she does not have the accountant's version of QuickBooks (so you cannot use the Accountant's copy feature of the program).  You could send your accountant a backup, he/she could work in it and send it back to you to restore as your working copy.  

Lynda

Check out my website www.artesanibookkeeping.com