Moving your shop to a new computer

Computers fail, and shop computers fail more than most — they run all day, in dust, on whatever power the street provides. Planning the move before you need it turns a bad week into a bad afternoon.

What a backup has to contain

"We back up your data" is not an answer. A backup that is worth having contains, at minimum:

• Products, with their prices, costs, barcodes and stock.
• Every sale, with its lines, as they were sold — not summarised.
• Customers, their balances, and the payments behind those balances.
• Suppliers, purchases and what you owe.
• Your staff accounts and what each of them is allowed to do.
• Your settings: currency, tax rates, receipt details, timezone.

If any of those is missing, restoring is not restoring — it is starting again with a head start.

The test almost nobody runs

Take a backup today. Then actually restore it somewhere and check that something you recognise came back: a specific bill from last month, with the right lines and the right total.

A backup you have never restored is a file, not a plan. The number of shops that discover their backups are empty at the moment they need them is not small.

Do it once, now, while nothing is wrong.

Where to keep backups

• Not only on the computer that holds the shop. That is the one that fails.
• A USB stick is fine, and two are better, kept in different places.
• If you copy them somewhere online, that is your decision to make about your own data — but the local copy is the one that gets you trading again on Saturday morning.
• Take one before anything unusual: a software update, a stock count, a change of computer.

Moving to new hardware

The move itself has three parts, and licensed software adds a fourth.

1. Install the software on the new machine. Same version or newer. Do not restore an old backup into a much newer version without checking that it is supported.

2. Restore the backup. This should be a first-run option, not something you have to do after setting the shop up again from scratch — otherwise you end up with two shops in one file.

3. Check three things before you trade on it. A recent bill reads correctly. One customer's balance matches what you know it should be. Your product prices are right.

4. Move the licence. This is where most shops get stuck, because licences are usually tied to the machine to stop one licence running five shops. What you want is to be able to do it yourself: a code emailed to your registered address that releases the old machine, rather than a support ticket on a Sunday.

Ask about this before you buy. "Contact support" is an acceptable answer on a Tuesday and a terrible one on the day the computer dies.

The failure you cannot back up out of

One thing worth knowing: if the software encrypts your database on disk — which it should — the key is usually held by the computer. That means the encrypted file alone is not a backup. Copying the database file to a USB stick and restoring it onto a different machine will not open, because the key stayed behind.

The backup the application produces is the thing to keep, not the raw file. This surprises people, and it surprises them at the worst time.

If you cannot sign in at all

Worth knowing your options before you need them, because the moment you need them is the moment you cannot look them up:

• A password reset by email, if the machine can reach the internet.
• An offline recovery method — usually a PIN set during setup — for when it cannot.
• A support code from the vendor as a last resort.
• Some way to export your data without signing in, so being locked out of the software never means being locked out of your own records.

That last one is rarer than it should be, and it is the difference between an annoying day and a catastrophic one.

A short routine worth adopting

• A backup at the end of every week, and before every update.
• Two USB sticks, rotated, kept apart.
• A restore test every few months. Fifteen minutes.
• Your licence email address kept current, so a move code can actually reach you.
• The recovery PIN written down somewhere that is not the shop computer.

None of that is interesting, and all of it is cheaper than the alternative.

SalezFlow POS takes a full backup in one click, restores onto new hardware as a first-run option with your staff and history intact, releases the licence to a new machine with a code emailed to your registered address, and can export your whole shop even when you cannot sign in. See the backup and restore guide.