Since Sage 50/Peachtree allows you to have two years open, this is the time of year when most people close out the prior year so they will be ready to go for next year. Even though most reports can be run for closed years, it’s a good idea to make a copy of your Sage 50/Peachtree company file before closing the year. There are two ways you can do that. You can make a copy of your company and rename it, or you can use the Archive feature.

USING THE ARCHIVE FEATURE

Sage 50 Premium and Quantum have an archive feature. It creates a read-only copy of your company. You can make an archive at any time by going to the File menu and choosing Archive Company. Or, during the Year End Wizard you are also given the option to create an archive. Either way, you will be prompted for an archive name. This is just a name to identify it in the list of archives. The system will automatically fill in the word “Archive” followed by the date but you can change it to something more descriptive if you want to. Then just click the Archive button and wait while it copies your data.

Things you need to know about archives:

  • They are read-only – That is significant for a couple of reasons. First, you never have to wonder if it has been altered. You know that it will always be a perfect snapshot of your books at that moment. Second, because it is read-only, you can’t count on this as a backup. There is no way to restore the archive copy to an editable state.
  • You get to it from inside your regular company – Archives don’t show up in the regular “Open Company” window. To access an archive, start by opening your regular company, then go to the File menu and choose Open Archived Company. Click OK at the message “This will close the current company.” Then choose your archive from the list. When you want to go back to your regular company file, open the File menu and choose Open Company or Open Previous Company.
  • Passwords and permission will match the regular company – If you change passwords or user permissions in your regular company, those changes are automatically replicated in your archive companies.

MANUALLY ARCHIVING BY CREATING A COPY

Before the archive feature was added, people would create a copy of their company file at year end. Since Sage 50 Pro and Complete don’t offer archiving, this is still their only option.

The easiest way to copy your company is to make and restore a backup. Open the company you want to copy, go to the File menu and choose Backup. When the “Save In” window opens, you can accept the default name and location or choose your own. If you don’t use the defaults, make sure you know where to find the file later. Click Save. When your backup completes, go to the File menu again and choose Restore. In the Location field, make sure it has selected the backup you just made. If it not, click the Browse button to find the right backup file. Once you have the right backup file selected, click the Next button. In the next window, be sure to choose Create a new company using the restored data. That tells Sage 50 to restore this file to a new folder, which creates a new company that is identical to the one you just backed up. (If you are using an old version that doesn’t have this option, you will need to create a new, empty company and restore over that company.) Click Next to get to the Restore Options. Select the option for Company Data and, if you use it, select Intelligence Reporting Reports. Click Finish at the confirmation window.

When it finishes restoring you will be in the new company. Go to the Maintain menu and choose Company Information. Add the year to the beginning of the company name so you can tell it apart from your regular company. Click OK to save the change. To go back to your normal company, go to the File menu and choose Open Company. You should see both your regular company and the new renamed company in the list.

Things you need to know about copied companies:

  • They are not read-only – The good thing about this is it means a copied company can serve as a backup. And if you discover that for some reason you need to make a change to it (this would be uncommon) you can. The down side is that someone could make changes to this company when they shouldn’t.
  • They show up in your regular company list – You don’t have to remember a different procedure for opening a copied company because you open it the same way you would any other company file. That also means that, over time, your company list can get cluttered.
  • Passwords and permissions are not linked to your regular company – If you change passwords or add/remove users in your regular company file, the copy will be unaffected by the change. So be careful to make sure you know the passwords for your yearly copies, or update them at the same time you update your regular company. The positive aspect of this is that you can set users to “view-only” permissions in the copied company to prevent people from accidentally entering data in the wrong company.


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