How do I backup FreeAgent

[ladymuck]

To get the bare bones of the state of your accounts, all you need is the Trial Balance. Any accountant or decent book-keeper can start from that as a basis for recovery in event of data loss.

Whilst having a record of every individual transaction is preferable, you don't need anything more than a TB to quickly get up and running again. You should still have all your receipts so you will still have the evidence behind the account totals if there ever was an enquiry.

A habit I got into many years ago was to save a copy of the P&L statement, TB and Balance Sheet at the end of every month. They are saved alongside electronic copies of all my receipts, invoices, etc.

[Lance]

To get the bare bones of the state of your accounts, all you need is the Trial Balance. Any accountant or decent book-keeper can start from that as a basis for recovery in event of data loss.

Whilst having a record of every individual transaction is preferable, you don't need anything more than a TB to quickly get up and running again. You should still have all your receipts so you will still have the evidence behind the account totals if there ever was an enquiry.

A habit I got into many years ago was to save a copy of the P&L statement, TB and Balance Sheet at the end of every month. They are saved alongside electronic copies of all my receipts, invoices, etc.

'may still' have all receipts.
Keeping them on FreeAgent only is perfectly valid. But how HMRC would see a lack of receipts in the event of data loss I don't know.

I have all my big receipts stored in alternative cloud storage, but the odd meal and sundry expenses may well be just FA. Worst case for that would involve having to pay back some reclaimed VAT that cannot be proven.

This thread should be in technical really
Or a BC/DR sub forum...

[ladymuck]

'may still' have all receipts.
Keeping them on FreeAgent only is perfectly valid. But how HMRC would see a lack of receipts in the event of data loss I don't know.

I have all my big receipts stored in alternative cloud storage, but the odd meal and sundry expenses may well be just FA. Worst case for that would involve having to pay back some reclaimed VAT that cannot be proven.

This thread should be in technical really
Or a BC/DR sub forum...

I scan in all my receipts then chuck them. They are attached to transactions in Xero and they are stored in OneDrive with periodic back up to my NAS.

Would be interesting to know what HMRC would do about data loss with cloud accounting.

[Lance]

I scan in all my receipts then chuck them. They are attached to transactions in Xero and they are stored in OneDrive with periodic back up to my NAS.

Would be interesting to know what HMRC would do about data loss with cloud accounting.

If OneDrive for Business simply set a retention policy. That way they will never be deleted completely. Even by ransomware.

after that...
Microsoft have 3 copies of backups in every data centre, and at least one copy in the other DC in the same region. That's on top of the highly available redundant storage with cross-site replication.
So safe as houses. There's a reason they are certified for government classified data.

[ladymuck]

If OneDrive for Business simply set a retention policy. That way they will never be deleted completely. Even by ransomware.

Good point. I should do that - I'll take a look

[SimonMac]

FreeAgent is owned by RBS group, not your accountant, the data security of banks are better than Parasol/SJD