What to back up
- Customer list and balances.
- Sales entries, cash and credit.
- Expenses and supplier payments.
- Delivery slips and statuses.
Everything else, such as settings and labels, can be set up again in minutes.
Choose a fixed day
Monthly works for most shops and takes roughly five minutes. Pick the same day every month. The 1st or the day rent is paid are easy ones, because the date already matters to the shop.
- Open the export or backup option in your app.
- Download the file to the phone's downloads folder.
- Move a copy out of the phone: household laptop, email draft, or memory card.
- Rename it with the month: "hisab-2079-bhadra.csv".
The copy outside the phone is the backup. The file still on the phone is not.
When you change phones
Do the export before the change, not after. If your app syncs to a server, log in on the new phone first and confirm the balances match before you reset the old one. With local-first apps, keep the old phone charged with its data until you are certain the migration is complete.
Test the file once
Open one exported file and check it is readable: customer names, amounts and dates visible. An unreadable backup is not a backup. This is a five minute test you do once, not every month.
Backups are boring for exactly as long as they hold. The month you need one, it is the most exciting file in the house.
Keep the backup private
A hisab file contains customer names and amounts. Store it somewhere only you can open: your own device, your own account. Avoid forwarding it to a shared group where half the neighbours can see your customers.
NanoKhata is local-first, so records live on your phone first, and CSV backup is always available when you need a second copy.