Can I backup online data to personal computer

Hi there, @simplyoakboutiqu.

Yes, you can create a backup copy of your QuickBooks Online (QBO) data and save it to your computer. Yet before that, please note that if you cancel your QBO subscription, you will still have read-only access to your account for one year.

For more details, you can read this article: What happens to my data after canceling my QuickBooks subscription.

If you decide to resubscribe within that one year, your QuickBooks data will remain accessible. However, if you don't plan to renew your subscription, you can proceed with exporting your data to save a backup copy.

Here’s how:

1. Go to Settings. Under the Tools column, select Export Data.
2. Decide whether you want to export Reports or Lists first.
3. For exporting Reports, open the dropdown menu under Pre-selected date ranges and choose a desired date period.
   
4. Use the toggle switches to include specific data in the export. The same process applies when you choose Lists.
   
5. Once done finalizing, click Export to Excel.
6. After that, you can check it in the Downloads section on your computer.

Feel free to reach out again if you have additional questions. We’re here to assist you.

@simplyoakboutiqu 

Convert your data to QB Desktop and you can use the trial version to access your historical data for good.

Good question, and the short version is that QuickBooks Online doesn't have a one-click "save a backup to my computer" button. What you can do instead is export a full copy of your books yourself, and that copy lives on your computer independent of your subscription.

Here's the set that covers almost everything, and it's worth doing each in both Excel and PDF (the spreadsheet so the numbers stay workable, the PDF as a clean fixed copy anyone can open):

• General Ledger, set to All Dates. This is the important one, it holds every transaction with its account and amount.
• Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet, and Trial Balance for each year.
• Your lists under the gear icon: chart of accounts, customers, vendors, and products and services.
• Everything on the Attachments page. Save those to a folder as you go, since they come down separately from the transactions they're attached to.

If you have a lot of history, run the reports a year at a time so the exports don't time out. Once it's saved you have a standalone record that doesn't depend on logging back in.

One thing worth knowing if the reason you're asking is that you're thinking about cancelling: after you cancel you keep read-only access for about a year, and after that the data is removed, so it's best to pull this copy while the account is fully active.

If you'd rather not do it by hand, there's a service that does exactly this as a one-time job, booksbackup.com. I built it after archiving several of my own closed companies, and it also keeps each attachment linked to its transaction. Either way the list above is what you'd want for your own records.