Many of the PCLaw recovery cases we take on have one thing in common: the firm had a backup, and the backup did not work. It was incomplete, months old, stored on the same server that failed, or had never been restored once to see whether it could be. This guide sets out a backup routine that avoids all four problems.
First, know which PCLaw you run
PCLaw comes with one of two databases, and they are backed up in completely different ways.
- PCLaw (c-tree). The edition most small firms use, often called Workgroup. Your books are a set of data files in a folder on the server.
- PCLaw Enterprise (SQL Server). The edition for larger firms. Your books are a database inside Microsoft SQL Server.
If you are not sure which one you have, ask whoever installed it, or ask us. The rest of this guide depends on the answer.
What a complete PCLaw backup contains
A backup that only holds the accounting data is not enough to get a firm working again. A complete set includes:
- The PCLaw data itself (the data folder on c-tree, the database on SQL Server).
- Your templates: bill layouts, cheque layouts, letterhead and report designs.
- Documents and attachments stored through PCLaw, if you use that feature.
- The installer for your exact PCLaw version and your licence details.
- A short written note of where everything lives: server name, data path, SQL instance name.
The last two are the ones firms forget. Restoring data is quick. Finding the right installer for a version released four years ago, on the day the server died, is not.
Backing up the c-tree edition
Two rules matter more than anything else.
Everyone must be out of PCLaw. The data files are open while people work. Copy them while someone is posting and the copy can be inconsistent, or files in use can be skipped altogether. Schedule the backup for a time when the office is closed and make closing PCLaw part of the end-of-day routine.
Use PCLaw's own backup as well as a copy of the folder. The built-in backup produces a single file designed to be restored by PCLaw. A copy of the whole data folder gives you a second route if that file is ever damaged. Keep both.
Also check your backup software's log for skipped files. A nightly job that reports success while skipping locked files is the most common reason a c-tree backup turns out to be useless.
Backing up PCLaw Enterprise on SQL Server
Copying the database files while SQL Server is running does not produce a usable backup. Use SQL Server's own backup instead.
- Full backup every night.
- Transaction log backups through the day, every 15 to 60 minutes, with the database in the full recovery model. This lets you restore to a point in time, for example to five minutes before a bad import, instead of losing the whole day.
- A weekly integrity check (DBCC CHECKDB). Backing up a damaged database faithfully preserves the damage.
- Verify each backup with checksums when it is written.
If your firm runs SQL Server Express, note that it has no built-in job scheduler. Backups must be scheduled another way, and this is often where they silently stop. Our PCLaw SQL Server service includes setting this up correctly.
How often, and how many copies
Ask one question: how much work can the firm afford to re-enter? For most firms the honest answer is "less than a day", which means a backup every night at minimum.
For copies, follow the 3-2-1 rule:
- 3 copies of your data,
- on 2 different kinds of storage,
- with 1 copy off site and out of reach of the server.
"Out of reach" is the important part. Ransomware encrypts every drive the server can see, including attached USB drives and network shares. At least one copy must be offline or immutable, meaning it cannot be changed or deleted once written.
Keep history too: daily backups for two weeks, weekly for two months, and month-end and year-end copies for as long as your law society or state bar requires you to keep financial records. Corruption is often noticed weeks after it starts, and you may need to go back further than you expect.
Test the restore
A backup is only proven when it has been restored. Once a quarter:
- Restore last night's backup to a separate computer or a test folder, never over the live data.
- Open it in PCLaw.
- Compare three figures against the live system: the trust bank balance, the general bank balance, and total accounts receivable.
- Write down how long the restore took. That is your real downtime if the server fails.
Mistakes we see most often
- Backups stored on the same server, or the same drive, as the data.
- A backup job that has been failing for months with nobody reading the report.
- One backup file overwritten every night, so there is no earlier version to fall back on.
- Backing up while users are still logged in.
- No copy of the installer or the templates.
If your backup fails when you need it
Stop before trying anything else. Do not restore an old backup over the damaged data, and do not reinstall PCLaw on top of it: both can destroy information that would have made a recovery possible. Copy the damaged data somewhere safe and call a specialist. Our PCLaw data recovery service works from a copy, never the original, and there is no charge if nothing can be recovered.
If you would like a second opinion on your current backup routine, contact us and we will review it with you.