Lost budget data

[VICRAMZ]

Hi everyone . . .

I was working on a major re-organization of our chart of accounts. Moving accounts around, alphabetizing, etc.

After completing the job, I printed an income/expense statement ... and my budget data for half the accounts, everything from about 5500 and above, is gone. And, not just 2015, either. All budget data for those accounts is missing.

And, that wasn't even the area I was working on ... all I did was re-organize the income, release, and fund balance accounts to get them to correspond. I didn't do a thing in the expense section.

Anyway ... anybody got an idea on how I can restore my budgets without losing my re-organized chart of accounts?

Vic Ramsey
Moyock NC

[NeilZ]

Hi everyone . . .

I was working on a major re-organization of our chart of accounts. Moving accounts around, alphabetizing, etc.

After completing the job, I printed an income/expense statement ... and my budget data for half the accounts, everything from about 5500 and above, is gone. And, not just 2015, either. All budget data for those accounts is missing.

And, that wasn't even the area I was working on ... all I did was re-organize the income, release, and fund balance accounts to get them to correspond. I didn't do a thing in the expense section.

Anyway ... anybody got an idea on how I can restore my budgets without losing my re-organized chart of accounts?

Vic Ramsey
Moyock NC

How did you 'reorganize' ???

I don't believe there is any other way to restore that data, outside of restoring from a backup, which you DID take before you started, right ??

[VICRAMZ]

Neil . . .

Was hoping you would respond, and thanks for doing so as quickly as you did.

I "reorganized" by changing account numbers in the Maintain Chart of Accounts screen. We had a lot of designated offering and release accounts that had accumulated over the years, and we couldn't find anything, so I was alphabetizing and categorizing.

I do have a backup, but it's my overall computer backup done yesterday via Norton 360. If there's an automated backup in PowerChurch itself, I'm unaware of it. (And, no, I didn't do a PowerChurch backup before starting ... a lesson learned.)

I've looked through the data file, and found two files labeled "FABudgets". One is a .cdx file, which I'm assuming is an index file, and the other is a .dbf which contains the budget data. My current FABudgets.dbf file has about 3700 rows in it, and stops at account #5300 or so.
I checked the backup file (copied it first), and it's got almost 9000 rows, and goes to the end of my chart of accounts.

It's as if about 60% of my active file just disappeared.

So, my question is, can I simply use the backup files to overwrite the FABudgets.dbf (and if necessary, .cdx) files in my active installation. Simple cut and paste?

Thanks for your help.

Vic Ramsey

[NeilZ]

Neil . . .

Was hoping you would respond, and thanks for doing so as quickly as you did.

I "reorganized" by changing account numbers in the Maintain Chart of Accounts screen. We had a lot of designated offering and release accounts that had accumulated over the years, and we couldn't find anything, so I was alphabetizing and categorizing.

I do have a backup, but it's my overall computer backup done yesterday via Norton 360. If there's an automated backup in PowerChurch itself, I'm unaware of it. (And, no, I didn't do a PowerChurch backup before starting ... a lesson learned.)

Since v11, there is an automated backup using Windows Task Scheduler. You would go into Task Scheduler, click on create basic task enter the information as requested through the screen. You will get to the Action tab, and you want to run a program. Next screen will ask you for the program, so browse to the Powerchurch/PCPLUS11x directory and look for the PCBACKUP11x program and select that (x will be either 1 or 5 depending on what version of 11 you have). Finish the setup of the task, and it will automatically backup at that schedule. I have two churches setup to backup weekly after Contributions Entry on Sunday, works like a charm.

I've looked through the data file, and found two files labeled "FABudgets". One is a .cdx file, which I'm assuming is an index file, and the other is a .dbf which contains the budget data. My current FABudgets.dbf file has about 3700 rows in it, and stops at account #5300 or so.
I checked the backup file (copied it first), and it's got almost 9000 rows, and goes to the end of my chart of accounts.

It's as if about 60% of my active file just disappeared.

So, my question is, can I simply use the backup files to overwrite the FABudgets.dbf (and if necessary, .cdx) files in my active installation. Simple cut and paste?

Thanks for your help.

Vic Ramsey

Vic, I'm not going to say Yeah, that will work as I'm not sure it will. There are usually ancillary files that are touched whenever you're working anywhere in Powerchurch. This may be a simple case of 'you changed a lot of things, and you need to reindex' .

I just tested the renumbering, and everything moved (information, expenses, budget) correctly, so I'm thinking there's three things you can try:

1. Do a reindex, and see what happens.
2. Restore the Powerchurch directory tree from your Norton Backup
3. Call Powerchurch directly as they may be able to walk you through some troubleshooting. They may eventually tell you to do #1 anyway, but it couldn't hurt.

There's a fourth thing, setup the automatic backups!!

[VICRAMZ]

Neil ...

Thanks for your reply. I found the reference to the task scheduler after I wrote my original post.

I've already done a reindex, to no avail. The data is gone. There's simply noting in the table that corresponds to an account higher than 5300 or so.

I've got a backup in cloud storage from yesterday afternoon. Hoping that it is intact, and that I can use it to restore my financial data without having to back up everything.

But, first, a PowerChurch backup of what I have right now. I figure that, if I break the data set, the worst that can happen is that I have to reinstall the program and restore the data, and I'll be back where I am now.

Does this make sense? Am I missing something?

Vic

[NeilZ]

Neil ...

Thanks for your reply. I found the reference to the task scheduler after I wrote my original post.

I've already done a reindex, to no avail. The data is gone. There's simply noting in the table that corresponds to an account higher than 5300 or so.

I've got a backup in cloud storage from yesterday afternoon. Hoping that it is intact, and that I can use it to restore my financial data without having to back up everything.

But, first, a PowerChurch backup of what I have right now. I figure that, if I break the data set, the worst that can happen is that I have to reinstall the program and restore the data, and I'll be back where I am now.

Does this make sense? Am I missing something?

Vic

If you can do a selected directory restore to the Powerchurch directories, I think you should be fine. I've restored complete computers using a full backup, and Powerchurch worked no problems. I've not tried a selected restore, but that said, if you do as I advised about restoring the entire Powerchurch directory tree (do not try to restore individual files), it would include all the files and data.

And by all means, do a backup now this way you have the entire database backed up (Membership/Contributions/etc).