How to Avoid Massive Data Entry
Whether you are just setting up your AutoFluent system to meet your needs, or have years of crucial data that is the heart of your business, one thing is certain: Manually entering data is expensive, time consuming, can introduce errors, and is potentially crippling for any business. Fortunately, AutoFluent has solutions available to not only enter all of your new data at once, but also to protect your existing data from being lost forever.
If you are faced with the task of importing a lot of data into your system, there are different options available depending on the type of information that needs to be added to AutoFluent:
1. Directly importing inventory into AutoFluent - A built-in Excel Importer allows you to add directly to your new or existing inventory, or into your Vendor Catalog.
2. Importing customer or vendor information from your old system - Get a data conversion performed by our AutoFluent support staff and programmers.
As important as having all of your relevant business information entered into the software is, even more important is protecting the data that you already have. Regardless of the length of time you’ve been in business, losing all or part of your data can be very costly. In 2014, loss of data cost companies in the US over 1.7 trillion dollars.
As scary as losing your data may sound, all of this can be avoided by backing up your system regularly. If you host your data on your own local network, AutoFluent can restore your system from your last back-up in the case of computer failure. How can you backup your system?
1. Back up daily (or more often) to an external hard drive, thumb drive or other storage device.
2. If you are on support, you can also back up to our cloud servers every day.
3. Have your data hosted on our cloud servers and backups are done automatically.
The simplest and easiest way to protect your crucial data is to have AutoFluent host your data on the cloud. AutoFluent can set up your database on our cloud servers and back up your data automatically. If your computer crashes, your data is unaffected. Simply call our support staff to install AutoFluent on your new (or repaired) computer, and your data will be there without missing a beat.
If your AutoFluent is installed locally versus on the cloud, the best practice to maintain is to back up your system every day immediately after running your Daily Report. Many customers will end the day by running and posting the Daily report, sending email that’s due to be sent and then backing up their system. This entire process takes just a couple of minutes at the end of the day, but will ensure that your data has been properly saved in case of a computer catastrophe. Or you can have Cloud Hosting added to your monthly support cost. It’s a small price to pay for the peace of mind of knowing your data is safely protected all the time.
Cloud Hosting is included free when you subscribe to AutoFluent. Our economical subscription plan also includes full support and training as well as all of the updates and improvements included in every update and major release. You will never have to worry about missing out on new features, backing up your system, or whether you have the latest version of AutoFluent. Subscription costs include access to our team of knowledgeable support staff members that are focused on making sure your business runs as smoothly as possible.
Call us today if you have any questions about signing up for Cloud Hosting, starting or switching to a subscription plan, or if you need a Data Conversion. One phone call can save you time, money, and the frustration of manually reentering all of the data that you worked so hard to gain and maintain.
Addendum 07/19/17
There is a very important note we need to add to this article concerning backups. Sometimes a customer will call us whose server has crashed, and tell us they have been doing regular backups, but they have been backing up onto the same hard drive that crashed. When the drive crashes, so does the data and all the backups. If you back up onto the cloud, this is of course not an issue, but if you do not, remember that:
If you use a different computer to back up on, you save the backup onto a hard drive that is not your server. But if your computers are severely damaged or stolen, this won’t help.
You should back up onto more than one drive. Get a couple of inexpensive minimum 4gb flash drives, one for even numbered days, and one for odd numbered days, and take them home with you daily.
Remember, your data is at the heart of your business. Give it the attention and concern it deserves.