Your data is vulnerable to various risks, such as hardware failures, cyberattacks, and natural disasters. Backing up your data and having those backups easily accessible is often the quickest, most affordable way to recover. In fact, backups may be your only way to recover your data. 

Best Practices 

• Use the automatic backup feature in your software. (Not all products have this feature).  
• Regularly test your backups to ensure they are working by restoring and running the software. 
• Avoid cloud-based "incremental" backups; they cannot fully restore your data. 
• Store backups in diverse locations: external drives, USB sticks. At least one backup should be off-site. 
• Use offline external drives to protect against natural disasters and cyberattacks.  

Common Mistakes to Avoid 

• Not setting up regular backups. 
• Ignoring built-in automatic backup features. 
• Storing all backups in one place. 
• Relying on incremental backups (Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox). 
• Assuming your IT service backs up data without you testing. 
• Purchasing backup software, but not setting it up. 

Remember 

• You are responsible for your own backups. 
• Always password-protect your data to secure it. 

Additional Tips  

• If you have an IT company that backs up your data, work with them to perform regular data restores to test. 

More Information 

• For automatic backup guidance, search 'Automatic Backups' in the software Help menu. Not all products provide automatic backups. 
• Visit the Sage Resource Centre and take advantage of everything your software can do for you. 

 By following these guidelines, you can minimize the impact of data loss and recover more efficiently.