As a distributor, manufacturer or a logistics service provider, etc. The data in your financial system is as important as the inventory in your warehouse. So of course it’s a no-brainer that your financial databases should be backed up on a nightly basis. But are you avoiding the mistake that most companies make regarding the database back-up of their enterprise resource planning (ERP) or financial system?
You have 3 back-ups of your ERP database and they’re scattered around the world, but if you don’t test them regularly how do you know whether any of those databases are actually any good? How do you know if what you want to be backed up is actually being backed up? You don’t! Until you test the database, you’re putting blind faith into the back-up system working properly and the back-up databases having all of your company’s critical information available to you in case of an emergency.
Testing it is the only way of knowing whether your database back-up will work properly when you really need it.
How Often Should I be Testing The Back-Up Of My ERP Database
As a best practice you’ll want to test out your database back-ups at least once every 30 days to insure that the back-up system is working properly. If you have time to do it once a week that’s even better. And of course the only way to know if all back-ups of your database(s) work properly is to test all of them, but most of us do not have time to do that.
How Do I Test my ERP Database?
The following steps outline a quick and effective way to make sure your back-up database is behaving as it should.
- Login to the ERP system and enter some sample transactions.
- Print out a “stock status report” from the inventory module of your test database and compare it with the same report printed out of the production database.
- Print out some financial reports: i.e. AR aging, AP aging, Financial Trail Balance from test company and compare them with the same reports generated out of the production database.
- Create a brand new user in the test system and login using the newly assigned security role. Test to insure that the user has access to all of the modules/reports/etc that they should. And also spot check to test and insure that the user does not have access to any reports/windows/modules/etc that they should not.
Leverage our expertise to save time. Feel free to contact us if you have additional questions regarding: best practices for your databases, network security, etc.
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