Like your invoice files, the database files that hold your royalty information are critically important, and you'll want to keep them regularly backed-up.  In Basic Set-up (accessed from the Main Invoice Screen), you can indicate that you want the program to automatically back-up your files each time you exit.  This setting also applies to royalty files.  The automatic back-up feature is turned on by default--and, as long as you don't turn it off in Basic Set-up, it will stay that way.

You can back-up your royalty files when the main AnyBook program exits by placing a checkmark beside "Include Royalty Files" in the Back-up dialog box.

If you have limited disk space, however, you may want to back-up your royalty files on a separate disk.  The back-up feature in the Royalty Functions allows you to do that.  Royalty files can be backed on a different drive or directory than is used for invoice files.  The directory that you designate when the Royalty Back-up file dialog box appears will be remembered for subsequent sessions.

We highly recommend that you use two disk system.  Alternate the use of disks each day.  In other words, one day, you would use disk # 1.  Then next day, you would use disk # 2.  Keep alternating the disks each time you do a back-up.  This, of course, provides protection if one of the disks goes bad, but more importantly, it protects you in the event of a computer or operating system malfunction.  If you do a back-up to recover from a malfunction, the data on your back-up disk may end up garbled.  Moreover, at the same time, the malfunction may have garbled the data that AnyBook uses on your hard drive.  If you depend solely on one back-up disk, you'll have no data left.  Think of that:  all of your business data gone!  However, if you alternate back-up disks, you'll have everything except the current day's data.  Reconstructing one day's data is world of difference from reconstructing several years.

In addition to regular back-ups which occur when you exit, you may also want to back up files at other times.  If you are entering a lot of royalty information, you can periodically back them up on the fly by selecting FILE and BACK-UP ROYALTY FILES from the Menu Bar at the top of screen.

The Back-up File dialog box appears whenever a back-up is done.  Your default back-up drive (and/or directory) will appear in the box. If you want to change the drive, click on "Browse" (or double-click in the drive blank) and list of drives and directories will appear.

The type of files (dBase Files) used by this program have been time tested over the years and are some of the most stable and reliable in the business.  Under normal conditions, you shouldn't experience problems.  Your files, however, can be damaged from one of the following events: a power spike or power outage occurs, the computer is turned off without exiting the program, or the hard drive containing your files malfunctions.

If any of the above potentially damaging events occurs, and if your program is still running, exit the program, but do not do a back-up. If your data files have been damaged, you'll not want to back-up the damaged files.  When it's safe, re-start the program.  If the program starts with no problems, take a close look at your royalty information: page through a number of your set-up records and royalty reports and make sure that all the information is there and that the information is lined up correctly in the proper blanks. Generally, if there's a problem with the files, the program will detect it right away before the Main Menu appears.

A special module has been built into the royalty program that is automatically activated when file problems are detected.  The detection process occurs when the Royalty Functions Main Menu is first started, and the module will appear if it finds a file problem.  It will, then, analyze the problem and lead you through some steps to try to correct it.  If it is unable to correct the problem, it will ask you to put your back-up disk in a drive.  The back-up files will be restored.  As long as your back-up files are not corrupted, that should be the end of it, and you'll be able to use your royalty files.  You may end up losing some of the work you did when the damaging event occurred, but the remainder of your files should be intact.