Your Sage Timeslips database contains irreplaceable information about your business. Since computers are not infallible, you should not risk losing this data to hardware failure. We strongly recommend that you back up your Timeslips data regularly. Timeslips provides backup and restore functionality to help protect your data. Sage Timeslips backups capture every file in your database and store the data in a single compressed file.

Creating database backups ensures that only a limited amount of data is lost if database corruption or hardware problems occur. Restoring a backup is often the only way to repair a damaged database.

Creating Sage Timeslips backups

Creating backups manually

1. Open the database that needs to be backed up
2. Select File, Backup
3. Click Yes
4. Select the backup location,
   • For network installations, select:
     • Back up the database on the server - Requests the database server to backup the database. (Recommended)
     • Backup to a file - Allows you to save backup file to any location you can browse to. WARNING: Backing up to a local file requires that the server send the entire database to the workstation. This process can take an extended period of time depending on the size of the database.
   • For single stations, browse to the backup location.
5. Click OK
6. When backup completes a dialog box will appear, click OK

Restoring Sage Timeslips backups

1. Open Timeslips
2. Click File, Restore and choose the appropriate option in the Select a backup file to restore section
   • Restore a back from the server - choose this option if the backup is on the server in the specified Timeslips Backup location
   • Restore a backup from a local file - choose this option if the backup is located on a workstation or not in the server's specified Timeslips Backup location
3. In the Choose where to restore the backup file section
   • Current database - overwrites current data. Use with caution to prevent data loss. We suggest that you mark the Back up the current database first (STRONGLY RECOMMENDED) check box. If you overwrite the current database with a backup file containing older or incorrect data, you will be able to retrieve the current database.
   • Choose a new location - allows the user to restore to the local machine for local use only, or to the network in the Timeslips Database location and is made available to all workstations. Note that the name can be manually typed in or by selecting the 3-dot selector tool at the end of the line. Choosing the 3-dot selector tool allows you to see the names of existing databases so you do not duplicate one, and to add a comment to the restored database

Setting backup options

Sage Timeslips allows you to define personal preferences for your installation. Use the Startup/Exit page of the Personal Preferences dialog box to configure your backup settings. If you want Sage Timeslips to remind you to back up the database when you exit, mark the Back up database check box. After marking this checkbox, Sage Timeslips will open the Back Up Current Database dialog box upon exiting the program, and prompt you to back up your database.

Sage Timeslips also can remind you to back up the database after a specified number of days has elapsed. Mark the Remind me if a backup has not been made in nn days check box and select the number of days that you want between reminders.

Making safe backups

The following are some guidelines for creating an effective backup system for your Sage Timeslips database:

Back up your Sage Timeslips database on a regular basis. The frequency of your backups depends on the number of daily changes that you make to your database. When determining the frequency of your firm’s backups, remember that the more frequently you back up your Sage Timeslips database, the less data you will lose if you must restore a backup.

Back up your Sage Timeslips database to separate media, such as tape drive or large-capacity disk. Although you can make backups to your hard disk, these backups become inaccessible if your hardware fails.

Additionally, we suggest that you rotate several different pieces of media in your backup schedule. For example, if you back up to a tape drive, use a different tape for each daily backup within a given calendar week. Using multiple pieces of media for your backups provides several important benefits:

1. If you detect data corruption, it may have been present for some time and captured in multiple backups. With several backups, you may be able to find an uncorrupted backup of your database.
2. It allows you to store the backup to a secure location, preferably off-site, in case of fire or other major disaster to your office.

Always keep at least three different backups of your Sage Timeslips database.

Back up your Sage Timeslips database before purging data, closing a period, or executing any process that modifies a large amount of data.

Use a unique name for each backup of your Sage Timeslips database, such as the date for example. This ensures that you do not accidentally overwrite a previous backup of your Sage Timeslips database.

Using other backup programs

We suggest that you use the backup and restore functions provided by Sage Timeslips to back up your database. Other backup software may be incapable of backing up SQL databases correctly. Please ensure that the 3rd-party software is capable of doing so.

Additional considerations

Sage Timeslips backup files include all files within the database folder. This backup includes all database files and all non-database files stored in the database folder. When making the backup, you can also include all sub-folders stored within the database folder.