Question about Import/Restore

Jun 06, 2008 5 Replies
S

Hello,



I'm hardly a Quickbooks expert, and one of my customers (I am a PC tech) was having trouble keeping his most current Quickbooks files in synch.



This guy was being a little bit cavalier, he brought one laptop on the road with him, and usually backed up his main file to a thumb drive, via the backup wizard. Then, somehow, he sometimes backed up the file on the thumb drive to his office laptop.



(The more I think about this, the more I wish he'd been a little bit more careful.)



He dropped his thumb drive, and ran over it with his truck. (I was not present for this...) I guess he panicked, and did something...



I determined that the files were out of synch; the one on the office laptop was the oldest one, and the ones that were on his road laptop and his thumb drive were approximately saved at the same time.BUT not the exact same time, and he thinks that there may have been a few entries in one of the Quickbooks files that weren't in the other



Apparently, when a Quickbooks file is backed up from the wizard, it will only let you restore it, it will not let you open it. I didn't know this...But realizing that I would do the least possible harm if I restored the file from the thumb to the office laptop, I did that. Now he's asking me if there any missing entries, and I'm like, I don't know can't you tell?



MY QUESTIONS AFTER ALL OF THIS IS


1) Why was I advised to restore it as a different name, since it is a restore, and


2) Does a Quickbooks restore, from a wizard-generated backup, collate or overwrite?



Clear as mud?



Thanks,



smackedass


Vote
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn
Q

  1. by restoring it to a different name, you didin't overwrite the other/existing file.
  2. QB overwrites the previous file if you give it the same name.

The only way to tell if there are missing entries is to look at the registers and transactions entered.

Michelle L. Long, CPA, MBA Author of: Successful QuickBooks Consulting: The Complete Guide to Starting and Growing a QuickBooks Consulting Business

formatting link

Vote
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn
H

  1. by restoring it to a different name, you didin't overwrite the other/existing file.
  2. QB overwrites the previous file if you give it the same name.

The only way to tell if there are missing entries is to look at the registers and transactions entered.

I would print out a trial balance from each and compare.

Michelle L. Long, CPA, MBA Author of: Successful QuickBooks Consulting: The Complete Guide to Starting and Growing a QuickBooks Consulting Business

formatting link

Vote
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn
G

QuickBooks does not "synch" it's database. It does create a backup which you can restore and open on any computer with the same version of QuickBooks. A restore creates or overwrites a file, if it exists, just like any other backup program, wizard or not.

So, the desktop computer had the QuickBooks datafile (extension qbw). When you restore from the backup, luckily you gave it a different name, so you did not overwrite the original. Now you can compare and answer his question. If you need to "synch" there is a third party program to help, but my recommendations is for the user to be systematic in his approach to backing up and restoring. That is where most of the problems lie.

Gary

Vote
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn
G

formatting link
>

Isn't that what the audit trail is for?

Vote
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn
S

Thanks to all who responded. Now I get to break the bad news, which isn't that bad, that he just has to look at the two most current copies and sync them manually.

sa

Vote
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required