Making a backup of your data is essential to ensure you have a secure copy of your data saved on your computer, external hard drive or a CD.

Hardware failure and physical damage from natural causes can occur, therefore we advise that multiple copies are saved to different locations.

It is essential to have a backup routine in place to ensure that backups are created regularly.

The backup will be date stamped to ensure that you restore the correct backup and do not overwrite previous backups.

We recommend the following backup regime:

• Daily backups: Will ensure a recent backup is always available to restore. Every time a backup is made a date/time stamp is created on the folder.
• Weekly backups:  These backups need to be on separate devices on the last day of each week, should something happen to the daily backups you can at least go back one week.
• Monthly backups: Made onto separate devices on the last day of every month. These backups will be kept for at least one financial year.
• Year End backup: Will be made onto a separate device. This backup will be kept forever.

Third party companies are available to assist with automatic backups. This software will instruct the system to perform backups at night or after normal working hours. Sage Pastel Iron Tree is one of the third-party companies that can be contacted for this functionality. For more details about Pastel IronTree, visit www.pastelirontree.co.za

TIP: Evenif you use third party software to backup onto removable media, you maystill want to make an initial backup onto the hard disk with the system'sbackup function, and then backup the backup file. The reason is that thebackup function compresses the data into a single ZIP file. This fileis far smaller than the uncompressed data.

The Backup process:

NOTE: All users must be logged out of the company before you can proceed to make a backup.

• Select File...Backup
• In the Verify Method frame, choose whether to verify the data you backup. Verify Method gives you 2 options: 
  • No Checking: This option backs up without verifying the integrity of the data
  • Ensure Files Readable:  This option verifies that your data is readable prior to performing the backup. Note that this option does no internal checking of the integrity of your data. If you choose this option, the system opens a table to display the results of the verification

• Images: Select this option if you have images (logo’s) that needs to be included in the backup, if not deselect the option. Images can be added to various Master File records in your Sage Pastel Company. If you do have images, they will be saved in a sub-folder beneath the data folder. If you have quite a few images in this folder, we suggest that you deselect images, because it can make the backup very big.

• Where to back up to: Browse and select the location as to where you would like to save your backup. The system will default to the last folder you used on the previous backup. A new folder can be created if you wish to save the backup in a new folder.

• Process: Confirms the backup being made and the location where the backup is going to be made.

When your local drive is selected for your backup you will receive the following message, select Yes to proceed with the backup.

• When the backup is completed, the system ensures the backup is readable
• Select OK to start the test operation

• When the test is complete, the system displays the backup log file
• Close the screen once finished