• Survey of Rural Challenges
  • Small Town Speaker Becky McCray
  • Shop Local video
  • SaveYour.Town

Small Biz Survival

The small town and rural business resource

A row of small town shops
  • Front Page
  • Latest stories
  • About
  • Guided Tour
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • RSS

Make these 3 essential year-end backups

By Becky McCray

How many pennies

Don’t leave yourself guessing about old financial records. Back up now. Photo by Becky McCray. 

Backing up your accounting data used to mean printing off reams of paper reports stuffed into boxes, and then you had to find a place to keep all that. Today, backing up your accounting data means generating a few PDFs and keeping extra copies electronically.

1. Save PDF versions of year-end accounting reports

Accounting systems change. In over 20 years with computers, I can’t even remember how many different accounting systems I’ve used. There’s no assurance you’ll be able to read your accounting data next year.  Today it’s easy to create PDF that will be readable even after you change software systems. Here are the reports to save:

  • Profit and Loss, Jan 1 – Dec 31
  • Balance Sheet, dated Dec 31
  • Detail of every transaction, Jan 1 – Dec 31
  • Payroll tax details for each employee, Jan 1 – Dec 31

Make sure you backup these important reports into more than one location.

2. Download online banking statements

Think about all the banking-related services you use online: PayPal, online banking, Square, Dwolla, and others.  These are key financial records that you don’t want to lose, and most of them limit how long you can download detail. For my local bank, I have access to one year of statements. PayPal recommends downloading your history each and every month. So now is the time to download PDF copies of all your banking transactions.

3. Backup your cloud  

Quick! How many different cloud services are you using? Google Docs/Drive, Evernote,  iCloud, DropBox, and all the others are wonderful, until they don’t work. Take time right now to export and save a copy of all important documents in your cloud services. You can back them up to another cloud service, or to a local hard drive. With portable hard drives under $100 and online backup systems under $100 per year, it’s a good investment in your business.

New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates.

 

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
  • How small town businesses can market to remote workers and turn them into new customers - May 15, 2023
  • Survey of Rural Challenges 2023 results - May 8, 2023
  • Rural and small town ideas from the OU Placemaking Conference IQC 2023 - April 5, 2023
  • Rural tourism trends say small towns are still cool - March 27, 2023
  • Move Your Money and Bank Local - March 22, 2023
  • Using a building as a warehouse or storage in a small town? Put up a sign - March 13, 2023
  • How to get customers in the door of small town and rural retail stores - February 19, 2023
  • Check your small business website for outdated pandemic changes, missing info - January 31, 2023
  • Rural Tourism Trend: electric vehicle chargers can drive visitors - January 15, 2023
  • 2023 trends for rural and small town businesses - December 26, 2022

January 2, 2014 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, organization

Wondering what is and is not allowed in the comments?
Or how to get a nifty photo beside your name?
Check our commenting policy.
Use your real name, not a business name.


Don't see the comment form?
Comments are automatically closed on older posts, but you can send me your comment via this contact form and I'll add it manually for you. Thanks!

Howdy!

Glad you dropped in to the rural and small town business blog, established in 2006.

We want you to feel at home, so please take our guided tour.

Meet our authors on the About page.

Have something to say? You can give us a holler on the contact form.

If you would like permission to re-use an article you've read here, please make a Reprint Request.

Want to search our past articles? Catch up with the latest stories? Browse through the categories? All the good stuff is on the Front Page.

Partners

We partner with campaigns and organizations that we think best benefit rural small businesses. Logo with "Shop Indie Local" Move Your Money, bank local, invest local Multicolor logo with text that says "Global Entrepreneurship Week" Save Your Town logotype

Best of Small Biz Survival

A shopkeeper and a customer share a laugh in a small store packed full of interesting home wares.

How to get customers in the door of small town and rural retail stores

Rural Tourism Trend: electric vehicle chargers can drive visitors

Wide view of a prairie landscape with a walk-through gate in a fence

Tourism: Make the most of scant remains and “not much to see” sites with a look-through sign

Holyoke Hummus Company cart

How one food business keeps adapting, from table to cart to truck, to restaurant and back again

Make extra money from extra workspace: co-working and 3rd workplaces in small towns

Newspaper story headline says, "Made in Dorrigo Markets a bustling success"

Boost your maker economy with a “Made in” day

More of the best of Small Biz Survival

Copyright © 2023 Becky McCray
Front Page · Log in