Backing up your inventory: how, when and where

Backing up your inventory: how, when and where

Your inventory is not just the merchandise sitting in your warehouse: it is your purchase and cost history, the record of every movement in and out, what your customers owe you, and the data that tells you what to buy and at what price. All of that, built up over months or years of work, now lives in a file on your computer. And all of it can disappear in a second because of a failed drive, a robbery, a fire or ransomware encrypting your files. The question is not whether it will happen to you, but whether you will be ready when it does.

This article is a practical guide to setting up, in one afternoon, a serious backup system for your inventory information: what to copy, how often, where to keep the copies and, above all, how to verify that those copies actually work when you need them. At the end you will find the whole plan summarized in a table you can print and follow step by step.

Why your inventory deserves a real backup

People who have never lost information tend to think that backups are something big companies do. Reality is different. A laptop falls to the floor, a hard drive starts making strange noises, an employee unplugs the USB stick holding your accounting files, or a malicious email encrypts every document in the business and demands a ransom. In any of those scenarios, without a backup you do not lose a file: you lose the commercial memory of your business.

Think about everything your inventory system holds. The price at which you bought each product and how it changed over time. The dates and quantities of every purchase from your suppliers. The movements of every sale, return or adjustment. The list of customers and their balances. If none of that exists on paper and it only lives in one file, that file is one of the most valuable assets of your company, and it deserves to be treated like one.

What to back up: the database, the images and the templates

A good backup does not mean copying your entire hard drive. Three things cover almost everything:

• The inventory program's database file. In programs that store information locally, like Kardex Tauro, all your products, movements, customers and costs live in a single SQLite database: one file on your computer. Back up that file and you are backing up the entire inventory.
• Images and your logo. If you register photos of your products or use a logo on your documents, those images are usually stored in separate folders. Identify them and include them in the copy, because without them your records are incomplete.
• Invoice and document templates. If you customized the layout of your invoices or delivery notes, back those files up too: rebuilding them takes hours.

There is an advantage of local programs worth understanding: your information is not held hostage in someone else's cloud. It lives on your computer, in that database file, which means you decide where and how to back it up. The flip side is that the responsibility is yours too: if the file gets damaged and you have no copy, there is no remote server to recover it from.

The 3-2-1 rule: three copies, two media, one off-site

There is a classic information security rule that is still the best guide for any business, no matter how small: the 3-2-1 rule.

• 3 copies of your information: the original you work with every day, plus two additional copies.
• 2 different media: for example, the computer's own disk and an external hard drive. If one medium fails, the other is still alive.
• 1 copy off-site: in the cloud or on an external drive you keep at another location or at home. If the business burns down or the equipment is stolen, that copy saves you.

The off-site copy is not optional: it is the one that protects you from real catastrophes, such as fire, flooding, theft or ransomware that also encrypts any connected drive. The external drive sleeping right next to the computer will not help with that; the cloud or the drive living somewhere else will.

When to back up: every day at closing, if you move inventory daily

The ideal frequency depends on how much information you would lose if the backup is one day late. If you invoice all day long, a daily backup at closing time is the right choice: what you did today is copied today, and the most you can lose is one day of work. If your business has little weekly movement, a weekly backup, on the same day and at the same time, may be enough. What never works is the backup when you remember to do it.

There is another point almost nobody considers: do not always overwrite the same copy. Keep at least the last four to six generations, for example Monday's backup, Tuesday's backup and so on. The reason is simple: if an accounting error, an accidental deletion or a virus was already present when you made yesterday's copy, that copy is contaminated. With several generations on hand you can go back to the day when the information was still healthy.

Where to keep the copies, and the open-file mistake

You have several reasonable options, and the best approach is to combine at least two of them:

• External hard drive or USB stick: cheap and fast, as long as you disconnect it and keep it in a safe place when you are not using it.
• Network drive or a second computer: if you have a local network or a server, copying to another machine gives you a different medium at no extra cost.
• Cloud (OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox or another): it gives you the off-site copy almost effortlessly. Turn on two-step verification for your account and consider encrypting the file if your information is sensitive.

Here is the classic mistake that ruins well-intentioned backups: copying the database while the program has it open. In a SQLite-style database, if the file is in use and the program is writing to it at that exact moment, the copy can end up incomplete or corrupted, and you will not find out until the day you try to restore it. The rule is simple: close the inventory program before copying its database, or use the program's own backup function if it has one. A backup made with the file open is a lottery you do not want to play.

The test almost nobody runs: actually restoring

A backup that cannot be restored is not a backup: it is an illusion. And the only way to know whether your copies work is to test them. Once a month, restore the most recent copy on a test computer or in a separate folder, open the program with that copy, and verify that your latest products, your latest movements and your updated customers are there. If the copy responds, your system works. If it does not, you found the problem at the best possible moment: while there is still time to fix it.

That monthly test is also the best training for the day of the disaster. When the computer really fails, you do not want to be reading manuals for the first time: you want to run a procedure you have already done several times and know it works.

Basic security around your backup

Backup goes hand in hand with the rest of your computer's security, and it is worth closing the obvious fronts:

• Protect the computer with a password and enable disk encryption if your system allows it: if the equipment is stolen, the data does not end up exposed.
• Keep your antivirus updated and avoid plugging in USB sticks of unknown origin: they are a classic entry route for viruses that later take your files.
• Also protect the cloud accounts where you keep your copies with strong passwords and two-step verification: a backup inside a hijacked account is not a backup either.
• Do not leave the backup external drive plugged into the computer all day: a lightning strike, a power surge or ransomware would hit it just like the main disk. Plug it in, copy, unplug it.

Your backup plan, in a table

Backing up is copying a file: take advantage of it

There is an irony worth remembering. Businesses that use cloud programs believe they are protected because everything is saved on the internet, but in reality they control neither the file, nor the copy, nor the access to their own data: they depend on the provider's continuity, on their contract and on their connection. With a local program like Kardex Tauro, your information is a SQLite file sitting on your computer, and that gives you an enormous advantage: backing it all up is as simple as copying one file to an external drive and to the cloud, with the program closed.

You do not need to be a technology expert to do this properly. You need one afternoon to set the plan up, a reminder to run it, and ten minutes a month to prove it works. Your inventory is years of work; a backup is the only thing standing between that work and a bad day with a damaged disk. Make your first backup today, not next week.