Finding your company file and other file tips

Over the lifespan of QuickBooks for Mac, a lot of users have asked a lot of questions about working with their company file. “Help!? I can’t find where I saved my company file!” or “Where should I back up my file?” Here’s our best advice:

  • If you can’t find your company file location, choose File > Open Recent to open the company file you last used in QuickBooks. If you’re like a lot of people, you’ve only got one, so that makes it easy. By default, QuickBooks saves your file in your Documents/QuickBooks folder. So if you can’t find it by opening the most recently used file, you can look there first.
  • If your company file is open and you want to know where it’s saved on your computer, choose Help > Product Information. The file location is at the bottom of the window.
  • Back up. Back up. Back up. It can’t be said enough. Backing up your company file will save you valuable time if something should happen to your computer or your file. With QuickBooks, you can back up to Apple’s Time Machine and set up automatic backups.
  • Consider using alternate sets of disks (or other removable media like flash drives or portable hard drives) when backing up your files. At least once a month, make a backup copy of your QuickBooks file and store it off your premises. If disaster strikes your office, you’ll have a reliable record of your data to fall back on.
  • Set QuickBooks to automatically back up your data file to disk. Choose QuickBooks > Preferences, select Backup, and then select the “Automatically back up company files to a disk when closing” checkbox.
  • You can back up your file to your iCloud. First, Choose File > Back Up… Then, select your iCloud Drive as the backup folder. Lastly, click Start Backup whenever you’re ready.

So there’s some tips for working with your company file. Have any tips of your own to share? We’d like to hear them! Share them with us in the comments below.


About Shelly King

Shelly King works for Intuit as a member of the QuickBooks for Mac team. She’s the Managing Editor for Little Square and its main contributor. Shelly grew up in the South until 1994 when the Internet called her to Silicon Valley. She’s done a lot on the web ever since. Little Square was her idea. Yep, it’s all her fault. See all of Shelly's articles

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