Imagine this… You have mJobTime exporting your labor timesheet information directly to your accounting software. You have a seamless process for payroll operations, and you’ve just paid your labor force for the 50th time this year. With two weeks left in the calendar year, your company suffers a huge blow with a tragic fire that destroys your offices, computers, and laptops.
Business comes to a screeching halt at a crucial time.
This unexpected event occurs more often than you’d expect. Thankfully you have business insurance to cover your immediate losses, cover ongoing operational expenses, keep paying your staff, and business continues. But, how do you recover and report on previous weeks of labor time and job costing while continuing to pay your employees?
Data backups are your virtual insurance.
Backups are a critical business practice ensuring that your company’s payroll records are not permanently lost to a hard drive failure, theft, flooding, or any number of other freak occurrences. Failing to schedule routine daily or weekly backups of your data could result in disruption of your business, financial losses, or even failure of the business itself.
How Should I Save My Backup Files?
There are three different formats for backing up data:
- Incremental backup – copies all the files that have changed since the last backup was made. Works in conjunction with other backups. Is the fastest to backup and the slowest to restore
- Differential backup – copies all those files that have changed since the last full backup was made. Works in conjunction with other backups. Is in the middle in terms of backup and restore speed.
- Full backup – copies all files. Is the slowest to backup and the fastest to restore
Where Should I Save My Backup Files?
There are several options for backing up your files but basically, there are two different types – offsite and onsite.
- Onsite backup systems can range from a simple USB stick to fire and water proof hard drives.
- Off-site services consist of some kind of vaulting where the data is stored in purpose built vaults, or online storage provided by third parties. Free versions are available at sites like Google, Dropbox, OneDrive or Box. Commercial alternatives are available for companies requiring more complexity or having bigger volumes of data.
How Often Should I Backup My Database?
The frequency that you schedule your company database should depend upon how often you save files and process your payroll. We recommend that you do either, an incremental or differential backup of your data at least once a day Monday through Friday and a full backup on Fridays.
Are data backups a part of your normal business operations? Have you relied on backup files in the past or do you only wish you had been able to?Share your horror stories with us.
