Exporting your data
Your records are yours. You can take them out at any time, in formats other software and other people can actually read.
What you can export
- Transactions — filtered however you like, or everything
- Reports — P&L, balance sheet, cash flow, trial balance
- The Explorer grid — with whatever pivot and columns you built
- Ledger and journals
- Products, customers, suppliers
- Payslips — see Payroll
- Report packs — as branded PDFs
Most exports are Excel/CSV; documents and packs are PDF.
How to export
From the Export screen, or the export control on the screen you are looking at. Choose your period and format. Exports respect your role — you can export what you can see.
When to use it
Your accountant wants a working copy. Better still, invite them so they work in the live book.
A lender or investor wants figures. A share link may be tidier than a file.
You need to work in Excel. For one-off modelling the Explorer export keeps your grouping.
Your own backup. Even with server-side backups, an annual export you hold yourself is cheap insurance and takes minutes.
You are leaving. Then take everything. Software that makes leaving hard is software you should be suspicious of.
A sensible backup habit
At each year end, export:
- All transactions for the year
- Trial balance, P&L and balance sheet
- Product and customer lists
- Payroll summary
Store it somewhere that is not the same account as everything else. It costs ten minutes annually and is the only copy that survives every category of problem.
Handle exports carefully
An exported file has none of SBB's protections — no audit trail, no roles, no recycle bin. A payroll export on a shared laptop is every salary in your business, readable by anyone.
Send them securely, and delete them when finished.