What is the difference between a complete backup and a full backup in Quickbooks online?

Hi @saltforkwoodwork.

I can share a few things about what I know about backups.

The complete backup means all parts of data are saved, while full backup means the maximum amount of that which can fit in the space available. For example of a complete backup is you already finish cloning all customers with its associated transactions data and other QuickBooks Online data.

On the other hand, a great example of a full backup is cloning all possible amount of data in your QuickBooks Online account that can fit in the space available. This identifies the name of the database you are backing up that includes the following:

• Customers and their transactions
• Vendors and their transactions
• Chart of accounts and the entries in the registers
• Products and services that covers pricing and tax details
• Reports and etc.

While QuickBooks Online is a cloud based application, this will store and manage your accounting data into one central cloud accounting system. It means that you won't to create a back up from time to time.

If you're required to back up your company in QuickBooks Online, you can reference this article to learn more: Back up and restore your QuickBooks Online Advanced company.

Feel free to comment if you have other concerns about handling your data. I'm always here to lend a hand. Have a nice day.

This response did not answer the question on the difference between Complete and Full. Let's try again:

When doing a Manual backup, I can choose:

1. Full, which I assume is a full dump of everything such that subsequent Quick Backups will use this as a new base for restore,

2. Quick, which I assume means "Incremental" in the standard terminology of backups and is dependent on the availability of a previous Full backup to properly restore,

3. Complete which seems like a synonym of "Full" and if that is so, it's not clear why this is necessary.

Please explain.

Then you need to change your nomenclature. In the industry, a full backup means everything to bring you back to where you were. You need to change "Full" to "Full Financial" and "Complete" to "Full Database". 

Which then brings up the question, why is there even a Full backup that only does the transactions and chart of accounts? It's fairly common to change configurations, add vendors, customers, etc in which case I would want a Complete backup more frequently. Full backup, as you have it now, provides no useful benefit over Complete except maybe to save you storage space. 

I assume the Quick Backup will pick up everything, including new customer and vendor records and configuration changes since the last Complete Backup? That could work with at least one Complete Backup in the past, though when you get a couple years worth of incrementals, the restore process can be lengthy since it has to crawl through every Quick Backup back to the last Complete.

JaeAnnC, you said that a complete backup "saves everything, including your company data", including "preferences and settings". However, the page you linked to says otherwise:

Data you can't back up:
QuickBooks Online Payments info
Customer types and price rules
Delayed credits and charges (although associated invoice are backed up)
Recurring transactions
Bank feeds and their links to transactions and bank rules
Reconciliation reports
Account-based billable expenses
Item-based billable expenses with markup
Custom reports
Custom form templates
Audit log entries

When you restore a backup, you can restore everything except:

Budgets - you need to export them as a CSV file.
Inventory - it doesn’t include the inventory history and inventory adjustments.
Tax rates using expense accounts - the Online Backup and Restore app restores them in your liability accounts.
Data backed up using the Local Backup feature - This data is saved in .cab format on your personal cloud account; Google Drive or Dropbox, for example. Restoring the data from a local backup is not supported at this time.

It appears that even a "complete" backup isn't really complete. It doesn't even backup "preferences and settings" like custom reports.

So how can we actually backup everything? And the word "everything" there refers to the actual English definition of everything, not Intuit's definition of "full" or "complete", which apparently aren't either one.

Russell

I agree that the FULL and COMPLETE are neither when it comes to understanding how they work.

I want to "CLONE" my existing company, which is EVERYTHING in the old one and created in the new one.

I believe that COMPLETE is what I want, but I am not sure it will give me the result in need. 

QBO, please advise. Thank you.

I appreciate you joining the thread, rheilbrunn.

I'm here to ensure you can generate a backup copy for every data you have in your company.

For QuickBooks Online (QBO) Advanced, you can back up your company file to create a copy of your data. However, certain information might not be included.

Aside from this, you can also manually export your data. However, only reports and lists can be exported in QBO Simple Start, Essentials, and Plus.

In your case, if you really want to back up everything in your company file, you can utilize a third-party application. Here's how:

1. On the left pane, select Apps.
2. Go to the Find apps section.
3. Enter the keyword in the search tab.
4. Select your preferred application.
5. Click on Get app now.

You can also visit this website to look for one: QuickBooks App Store.

On the other hand, consider scanning this material for guidance whenever you need to utilize your existing company information to create a new one: Make a copy of your QuickBooks Online Advanced company.

You're always welcome to visit the Community page if you have additional questions when backing up your data or other related concerns in QuickBooks Online. We're always here to lend a hand.