Traditionally QuickBooks backup has been done manually using the backup utility that is built inside of QuickBooks itself or using the paid online backup service from Intuit. My company runs QuickBooks Enterprise and I needed a way to automatically back this up using DPM. Well you can automate the backup of QuickBooks using DPM but you have to be sure you are getting the right stuff.
You will need to set DPM to backup the QBW file along with some other folders and files. Here are the details:
- QBW stands for QuickBooks Working file. This file is your QuickBooks data file and contains all of your QuickBooks data it is typically in the following folder %systemdrive%:\Quickbooks\ or %systemsrive%:\Program Files\Intuit\QuickBooks version\. You may have changed this default folder during the installation of QuickBooks.
- Transaction log – The Transaction log logs all changes to the company file before they are actually committed to the .qbw folder. This will be in the same folder as the QuickBooks company file the .qbw file. This file will be in this format: [company file name].qbw.tlg. This will need to be restored along with the .qbw file and placed in the same folder.
NOTE: The Transaction log is only cleared out when a complete backup of QuickBooks is run using the backup utility directly in QuickBooks. Backing up the files automatically with DPM will not clear this and the same is true if you were using Inuit Online Backups or another backup program. It is a good idea to go into QuickBooks periodically and run a backup using the backup utility so that your transaction log does not get to big.