You have hundreds of hours invested in the data entered into your software.  One of the most important tasks that you can do daily is to backup your investment the right way.  To know the right way, you must first understand some of the wrong ways.  Below are three true stories of clients that were faithful to backup their data and when the time came they needed their backup, it didn't help them.

Story One:  The first clinic backed up their data every day to their server's hard drive and to an external drive.  One day, they came to work and their office had been robbed.  All of their computers, hardware and many other items were stolen.  Because they never took a backup off site, they lost all their data.  This could also happen to if the building burned down or the hardware failed.

Story Two:  The second clinic had an external mirror drive and every night, it backed up their entire computer and they took it off site.  One day, their data became corrupted and they tried to fix it for a couple days before they called for help.  By the time they called for help, they couldn't be helped.  Why?  Each day when their system was backed up, it over wrote the backup from the day before.  This means their good backup was replaced by their corrupted data.  Backups must be rotated and you should have several copies of them.  Another potential problem with this scenario is the external hard drive could fail.  Never bank your practice on one piece of equipment.

Story Three:  The third clinic had three backups that they rotated and gook off site faithfully.  One day, they computer crashed and they needed to restore their backup to a new computer.  Their backup disks had been used for a couple years and had worn out.   All their data was lost plus they didn't know who had made appointments or which appointment slots were available for booking.  How could this be prevented?  Backup media should be replaced at least once per year and a backup copy could be moved to a home computer routinely to make sure it is working properly.

The Billing Answer:  What is The Billing Answer to backups?  There are three critical steps you should follow; first, whether you use zip drives, flash drives, CD Roms, etc., have a set of five that you label Monday through Friday and rotate these backups on the appropriate day and take them off site.  Second, replace your backup media at least once per year and restore on a second computer (home computer) to make sure it is valid.  Third, the first of each month, create a backup you save in a catalog forever.  This will help not only protect your data, but aide in creating historic reports if you are ever audited or have embezzlement issues.