Backup e-Records

During some research I was undertaking on small business record keeping programs, I found that the ATO actually offered a service called e-records.

I downloaded and installed it, and it looks to me to be a pretty comprehensive book keeping system. This is how the ATO describes it:

E-Record is a free, electronic record keeping software product. It helps small businesses (including non-profit organisations) to keep good business records and meet their tax reporting obligations.

Cosmetically it is awful however I am sure it is pretty accurate and secondly its free. There is always a backup angle to these posts and after playing around with adding data into the application, I did a simple backup. Each backup creates a GUID file. You can actually determine the location you wish to save it to (includes external drives and USB sticks). Now this is something you should be backing up remotely. Imagine losing a year’s worth of records because your PC died. If you were a small business, it could take you months to re-enter everything. Imagine the stress you would be under?

Obviously we would recommend going online, but whatever method you use, please ensure that this is backed up.

You should also consider backing up the data file. This where you can find it. The Help function provides quite a bit on backup. It recommends you backup quarterly. Given the likelihood of a PC crash, I would automate it so that you backup after each time you use it. This way you and your bookkeeping records are always protected.