 QuickBooks Desktop 2023 creating a backup file. Let's do it within 2-its QuickBooks Desktop 2023. Here we are on the desktop. We want to do a quick recap of the different types of icons in terms of software icons, data file icons, and the backup file icons that you will see and create when using QuickBooks Desktop. So this is the software icon that would open up the program in a similar way as the analogy that we will use Microsoft Word when you open up the Microsoft program of Microsoft Word. The data files then are going to be the things that we open within the program which would be similar to the analogy of Microsoft Word to the document files that would be opened up in the program. So in prior presentations we set up our data file, we housed it in here. I do recommend having a separate folder where you can kind of store your data files so you know where those data files are at. And also if I go into these data files, when you create the data file, this is the data file. If I right click on it and then and this would be similar to the analogy that we've been talking about of the Microsoft document that would then be opened by Microsoft Word. And if I go then to the properties we can see this is a data file and it's a QBW extension. So it's a QBW that's the data file. Notice when you create the data file, it always also has all this other stuff that's created. That's why you want to house it in its own folder, not like on your desktop or it's going to get really kind of messy. And so just keep that in mind. Also if you don't designate its own folder, Microsoft might put it in some place under like an Intuit folder, their default location, but you want to know where that is so you can find it if you need it. And then we're going to put our backup files in here. Now the backup file doesn't really tie into the Microsoft Word analogy because the backup files are not going to be something that we would use in Microsoft Word because we could just copy the file itself in Microsoft Word because they're usually not that big even if we have a large document. With QuickBooks, the backup, the data files, especially if we've been using them for multiple years can get quite large. And therefore when we back them up, we don't want to backup. We don't want to just copy the file. We want to have a different file to backup. So there's two kind of at least two reasons why you might back up the files. Note that we could back up the files of course to save the data in case our computer crashes. So note if the software is on your C drive and the computer were to crash, you want to make sure that you have your backup files somewhere other than the C drive, possibly online is fairly easy these days to put it in an online space. And that's one solution you can have. And that'll help to safeguard you just losing the data. You can make up backup files pretty easily as we will see. And the restoration process is pretty straightforward. You also might have backup files because you're you want to try a new thing like like you're you're going to be putting something a new software or you're going to put a journal entry that you're concerned about or something like that. So you might create a backup file so that you can then test something out and be able to restore. That's a great tool for the backup files. And we use it here for teaching, of course, because it's a great tool for putting in data into a practice problem and practicing with it. And then you can rework the same piece of piece of data by going back to the original before you added the new data. So that's another use for the backup files. If I double click the program, I'm going to open up the program. I'm going to open up the data file within it. So I'm going to try to open up just the sample file here. And we're going to make a backup of the sample file go through the backup process. Okay, so it doesn't really matter what folders we have open. We're in sample rock castle construction, the sample file provided by Intuit. If at the end of the day, and we would do this typically after each time we have a working session, typically at the end of each day, possibly we would want to maybe back up the file. And so we can go to the file drop down. And we could say we want to backup so we can then create a local backup. We can store previous local backups set up active online backup. So that might be another option to kind of automate the process we here we're going to be creating a local backup. So we'll go through the dialogue box, make a backup copy of everything you need to recreate your company file in case of accidental loss or damage to your data. Do you want to save your backup file online or locally? So remember online could be a good option because then it's on a server other than your C drive. So if your computer crashes, if your house burns down and your office burns down, then it's on a separate location. So get automatic online for your QuickBooks data and other important documents using Intuit's online backup solution. So you can learn more about that here. We're going to do the local backup, save locally to a removable storage device. If you want to not do it on the cloud, possibly you're not connected online all the time when working, you might then have external drives that you can save it to possibly rotating those external drives and having and then storing those drives at least somewhere other than the actual C drive so that if the computer crashes, you have the external drives there possibly in another location if you could as well. So then you've got the options down below. If we click on the options, tell us where you want to save your backup copies. I think if I hit next, it'll actually take us to the same screen. But in any case, I can browse to see where I want to put them. So I'm going to browse. Now it gives you the little drop down and when I go to the next window, it'll give us more of a standard kind of window that doesn't have just the arrows, but I'm going to go into the arrow drop down and we're going to look that I want on the desktop. I want it in the QuickBooks desktop and then I want it in the backup files. There we go. I'm going to say, okay, then we have our options here. Did it go there? What happened? I want here. I want QuickBooks desktop and then backup file. Okay. So there we have it. So add the data and time of the backup file. This is useful because when you put all your backup files to the same location, you want it to have the you want to be able to identify the latest backup file. Otherwise, it'll just have the same name that won't be useful. So that's usually a good thing. It's checked off by default limit the number of backups. So the default is three. You might I would might want more than that if they're not going to take up too much space. Usually more and more people have more and more space these days if you save your backups on an external drive or something like that. So but that allows you to be able to backup every day and have it then remove some of the older backups so that you don't have too much data in the one place. It just doesn't just pile up forever. And then we've got the online and local backup. We've got remind me to backup when I close my computer file every four times. So it'll remind you I would come up with a routine basically trying to backup either using the automatic backups or try to backup every every night or every time you use the software but possibly you can set the reminders here to do it every four times or something like that to give you a reminder that you haven't done it for a while. So that's on default. Select an option to verify that your company data is okay. That is not corrupt when you save. So we've got complete verification. That's the recommendation. So we'll keep it there. You could do the quicker verification or not have any verification at all. So we'll keep it as is. I'm going to say okay. And so you've told us to save that notice it gives us a check here. It's like you told us to save the backup copies to the same hard drive C drive that holds your company file. We do not recommend this instead. We recommend that you save a different drive or a removable storage device to avoid losing the backup due to an unexpected hard drive failure. They're saying why are you saving the backup file to the same drive that your company file is on that defeats the purpose of the backup file. Now this is just for practice. That's why we are doing it and you might have other reasons than just saving your backup file, such as you're practicing with it or testing something out or something like that. But for our purposes, I'm going to say use this location. Thank you for the checkup. And so it's going to be next. And do you want to save your backup file? Save it now, save it on a schedule future backups, save it now and schedule future backups only schedule future backups. And so if you are saving your backup copy to a removable storage device, such as a CD or USB drive, insert it now, we're going to say next. And then it gives you the dropdown again. Notice we already searched the proper location with the little arrows. So this gives you a more, a more dynamic kind of window to find where you want to put it. So you've got that. Then it gives you the file name down below. So notice it gives you the sample file and it gives you the backup timestamp so that you can tell which one it is. The extension now is going to be a QBB file instead of a QBW file, which is the written file, the one you're actually using. I'm going to say, okay, save it, back it up. It could take a little bit of time to back up. Usually not too much. It will be dependent on how much data is in your backup file or is in your data file. Okay, it's been complete. I'm going to say, okay, and then let's check out where it went. You do want to know where your backup files are, just like you want to know where your data files are. So we've now we've got, this is our software. I put the two things in this folder. So this folder now has the data files we looked at last time, which looks like this. And then it's got, wait, that was the backup. This is the data file that looks like this. And then we've got the backup file. So if I go back to the other file, the backup file looks like this, I'm going to make this large. So they look similar, but they are different. And look, you notice it gave us the date to the timestamp. So if I have multiple backup files, it will organize by date. So we can see where the latest one is. If I hover over it, you can see it's a backup file. If I right click on it and go to the properties of it properties, we're going to see it's a QBB extension indicating backup file. So just to recap, now we've got our software over here. There's the software icon. We've got the data file, which will open up every time if we're using the same company all the time, which can lead to us for getting words actually located. And we want to know where it is, just in case there's a problem. And then we've got the backup files that we do periodically, which we typically we want to have on some other drive other than the C drive possibly to the cloud that looks something like this, which we wouldn't normally open unless we needed to restore the data for some reason. Now remember, you do have the other options here. If you go to the dropdown and you go to the backup file and you want to set up active online backup, then you can take a look at those options. Intuit data protect creates an automatic local backup of your file daily, reducing the risks of data corruption, computer crashing and power failure. Obviously you would typically need to be connected to the internet in order to allow it to backup daily. Selecting option will help you activate an Intuit. You'll own manage backup file. You want to own manage backup of computer file data. So this I believe will be backing up to the Intuit servers, which should be a secure location. So keep that option in mind. And you could also experiment with basically setting the time for a future backup by going to the file, backup, same process, create a local backup. And then we can say next, and you could schedule a backup only schedule future backups, for example, to test out that option. I don't typically use these as much because usually I would think the best way to get in the habit of doing things is to every time you finish entering data, you just backup the file nightly or use the Quickbooks backup files. So they will do it automatically nightly or you backup every time you use or enter new data into the software would be the general idea. But you can take a look at these options as well to basically set a future date for the backup.