Help Center / Backup & Recovery

Backup & Recovery

Keep your financial data safe with reliable, automated backups.

Scheduled Backups

Scheduled backups ensure your financial records are always protected. Kantivo makes it easy to configure automatic backups so you never have to worry about data loss.

How to Set Up Scheduled Backups

  1. Navigate to Settings and open the Backup panel
  2. Turn on the Automatic Backups toggle
  3. Pick a schedule that fits your workflow:
    • Every day (the safest choice for active businesses)
    • Once per week
    • Each time you close the application
  4. Specify where backup files should be saved (the default is the backups directory inside your Kantivo installation)

How Long Backups Are Retained

On-Demand Backup

  1. Open Settings and select the Backup section
  2. Press Create Backup Now
  3. A timestamped backup file is generated immediately
  4. You can then copy this file to a USB drive, network share, or cloud folder for offsite protection
Good practice: Always generate a manual backup right before importing large datasets, performing bulk edits, or installing a Kantivo update. This gives you a clean restore point if anything unexpected occurs.

Choosing Where Backups Are Saved

By default, Kantivo stores full-database backups in a protected system folder and company exports in your Documents folder. You can point either one at any folder you prefer — a second internal drive, an external disk, a network share, or a folder synced to the cloud.

Setting a Custom Backup Folder

  1. Open System Administration and switch to the Backup & Restore tab
  2. Scroll to Choose Backup Locations
  3. Enter a folder path in either field:
    • Full database backups folder — where the complete nightly and manual backups are written
    • Company backups folder — where individual company exports are written
  4. Click Save Locations — Kantivo verifies it can actually write to the folder before accepting it

Leave a field blank to keep the default location, or use Reset to Defaults to switch both back at any time.

Built-in safety net: If your chosen folder is ever unavailable when a backup runs — for example, an external drive is unplugged or a network share is offline — Kantivo automatically saves that backup to the default location instead. A scheduled backup is never skipped because of a missing folder, and backups created before you changed the location remain visible in your backup lists.

Recovering from a Backup

  1. Head to Settings and open the Backup panel
  2. Choose View Backups to see all available snapshots
  3. Highlight the snapshot you want to roll back to
  4. Press Restore
  5. Confirm your decision in the dialog that appears
Heads up: Rolling back to a previous snapshot overwrites everything currently in your database. Any entries, invoices, or payments recorded after that snapshot was taken will no longer exist. Make sure this is what you intend before confirming.

Recommendations for Data Safety