Management Skill #5:
Backups and Archiving
Backups
There is no worse nightmare than to have all the invoices in the system suddenly vanish! No computer is 100% reliable and accidents do sometimes happen. This is why frequent daily backups are EXTREMELY IMPORTANT! In fact, backups are far too important to rely on human intervention. The answer is automatic backups. In the event of data loss, you can simply restore the CleanSuite database from a recent automatic backup.
Here is How:
Step 1 - To set up automatic backups click on the menu File --> Administration --> Change the backup Step 2 - Click on the large button that says Click here to select a folder for your automatic backups. Highlight a folder for your automatic backups and click on OK. Step 3 - In the lower right of the screen are five fields for backup times. You can enter from one to five backups a day. We recommend three. Enter them as am or pm Remember, when you restore from your backup, everything you've done since the backup will be lost and needs to be re-entered. Having a recent backup means you won't have to re-enter as many invoices, payments etc. |
Watch the video above for step by step directions. If you need the video to be displayed larger, simply click on the box to the right of the YouTube icon on the video above. Doing so will make your video full screen. To exit full screen and return to this page, press the Esc key.
The only drawback to multiple backups is that a backup can take several minutes to perform. You may not want customers waiting while the backup is being executed. To begin, you can set five backups a day. If you find they are interfering with your work, you can reduce the number or change the times.
Note: The automatic backup will not interrupt whatever you're doing. The screen must sit idle for 2 minutes before the backup will take place. For example: if you have a backup scheduled for 10 am and you're busy using the program until 10:30 am, the 10 am backup won't run until 10:32 am. |
Archiving
After using CleanSuite for a few years, you may find
customer searches are taking longer. Archiving once a year will speed up
these searches.
Archiving doesn't delete the records, it just moves them out of your current database, to another folder. If you need to look at these records in the future, you can open the archived database or you can restore the archived data and bring them back into your database. We recommend keeping the invoices for at least the full previous fiscal year and customers for the previous two years. (You never know when a customer might come back. It'll make them feel special if you still "remember" them two years after their last visit.) When you archive invoices, you're asked to enter the date of the archive. Invoices that have been paid and picked up prior to this date will be moved to a separate database in the C:\Users\Public\CleanSuite\Data\Archive\ folder. Note: This process can take some time, so it's advisable to let this run overnight. Here is How:
For example: An invoice created on December 28 but paid on January 4, will not archive, if your archive date is set for January 1. Although the invoice was created before the archive date, it will not be archived because it was paid after January 1st. In other words, the program archives only the invoices that have been paid and picked up prior to the selected archive date. This is why it's wise to ensure your Inventory report is accurate before running an archive. |
Watch the video above for step by step directions. If you need the video to be displayed larger, simply click on the box to the right of the YouTube icon on the video above. Doing so will make your video full screen. To exit full screen and return to this page, press the Esc key.
Archiving Customers:
Note: For a customer to be archived, all their invoices must be archived. Therefore, before you archive the customers, you must archive your invoices.
Generally you shouldn't need to restore from your archive. Instead, go to your main computer...
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