Feature

Single-File Backup You Actually Own in FreshLedger Pro

FreshLedger Pro stores every company's books in one self-contained database file on your Windows machine. Your chart of accounts, journal entries, customer and vendor records, payroll history, fixed asset register, attached PDFs, and reconciliation state all live inside that single file. Backup is exactly what backup should be: copy the file. Drag it to a USB stick, sync it to a network share, push it to your own S3 bucket, attach it to an email to your CPA. Restore is the reverse - drop the file back, open it, keep working. There is no proprietary cloud silo holding your data hostage, no vendor-controlled export window, no monthly fee that quietly converts your books into someone else's asset. If you have ever tried to get a real, complete, restorable copy of your books out of QuickBooks Online, you already know why this matters.

Buy FreshLedger Pro — $799

How it works

When you create a new company in FreshLedger Pro, the app writes a single file - CompanyName.flp - to a folder you choose. That file is a structured SQLite database with an integrity checksum and a documented schema. Everything subsequently entered for that company - invoices, bills, journal entries, bank reconciliations, depreciation schedules, payroll runs, 1099 tracking, attached receipt images and PDFs - is written into that one file inside a transaction. There are no sidecar folders, no separate attachment directories, no hidden registry state that has to match. To back up, you close the company (which flushes any pending writes and releases the file lock) and copy CompanyName.flp anywhere you want: external drive, network share, Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, Backblaze, a thumb drive in a fire safe. You can also use File > Backup Copy from inside the app, which writes a timestamped, optionally compressed and AES-256 encrypted copy (CompanyName_2024-03-15.flp.zip) to a path you configure. Many users schedule this through Windows Task Scheduler against the command-line flag flpro.exe --backup. To restore, copy the file back and open it. There is no "restore wizard" because there is nothing to reassemble. The same file opens identically on any Windows machine running FreshLedger Pro - your laptop, your bookkeeper's desktop, a replacement PC after a hardware failure. To send your books to your CPA at year-end, you email or upload the file. They open it, make adjusting journal entries for accruals, depreciation under MACRS, or Section 179 elections, and send the file back. You see their changes in the audit log with user, timestamp, and before/after values for each affected account.

Why it matters

Your general ledger is a legal record. Under IRS recordkeeping rules (Pub 583, Pub 463, and the recordkeeping requirements behind Form 1040 Schedule C, Form 1120, Form 1120-S, and Form 1065), you are expected to retain books and supporting documents generally for at least three years from the return due date, longer in cases involving understatement of income, worthless securities, or employment taxes (four years for payroll records supporting Form 941 and Form 940). "Retain" means you can actually produce them. If your books live exclusively inside a SaaS vendor's account and that account is suspended for a billing dispute, a chargeback, or because the vendor sunsets a product tier, your ability to satisfy that obligation is gated by a third party. A single, portable file you physically possess solves this. You can archive a year-end snapshot to write-once media. You can hand your successor accountant a complete copy without provisioning seats. You can keep books for a dissolved entity readable a decade from now without paying a monthly subscription to keep the lights on. If you are ever audited, you can produce the exact ledger state as of the filing date, because you saved a copy of the file the day you filed. That is what "owning your books" means in practical, defensible terms - not a marketing slogan.

Compared to other accounting software

QuickBooks Online does not offer a real local backup. Intuit added a limited "local backup" feature for some Advanced-tier subscribers that exports certain lists and transactions, but it is not a restorable, fidelity-complete copy of your company - attachments, audit log details, reconciliation linkage, and payroll history are not all preserved in a re-importable form. If you cancel QBO, you get read-only access for one year and then your data effectively disappears. QuickBooks Desktop does produce a local backup (.QBB) file, which is closer to the right idea, but the format is proprietary and version-locked. A 2024 QBB will not open in 2019 QuickBooks, and Intuit's sunset policy retires older versions on a rolling basis, forcing upgrades to keep your own historical files openable. You own the bytes; you do not really own the ability to read them. Xero is cloud-only. Export options are CSV lists plus a general ledger export; there is no "give me my whole company in one restorable file." Wave is similarly cloud-only and offers CSV exports of transactions and reports, not a full backup. FreshLedger Pro stores your company in a documented SQLite schema. Even in the worst case where the company stops shipping the product, you can open the file directly with free SQLite tooling and read every row. That is a meaningfully different ownership posture.

Honest limitations

Single-file backup does not protect you from things backup was never meant to solve. It will not version your file automatically - if you overwrite Tuesday's file with Monday's, the newer data is gone unless you kept timestamped copies (the built-in Backup Copy command does this; ad-hoc drag-and-drop does not). It does not encrypt the working file at rest by default; encryption is applied to backup archives, so use BitLocker or full-disk encryption for the live file if that matters to you. The file is single-user at a time - two people cannot edit the same company file simultaneously over a network share. FreshLedger Pro is Windows-only; macOS users run it under Parallels, VMware Fusion, or UTM. There is no automatic offsite replication built in; you choose and configure your own destination.

Ready to own your books?

One-time-purchase accounting software with built-in payroll, full depreciation handling, and a free Accountant Edition for your CPA.

Buy FreshLedger Pro — $799

One-time purchase. No subscription. Free Accountant Edition included.

Frequently asked questions

Can I open my FreshLedger Pro file if the company goes out of business?
Yes. The company file is a standard SQLite 3 database with a documented schema published in the user manual. Even with no FreshLedger Pro installation at all, you can open the file in any free SQLite browser (DB Browser for SQLite, sqlite3 CLI, DBeaver) and read every table - chart of accounts, journal lines, customers, invoices, payroll records. Attached documents are stored as BLOBs you can extract. This is a deliberate ownership decision. Your books should outlive any single software vendor, including us.
How do I back up automatically every night?
FreshLedger Pro ships with a command-line flag: flpro.exe --backup --company "C:\Books\Acme.flp" --dest "D:\Backups" --encrypt. Schedule that in Windows Task Scheduler to run nightly. It produces a timestamped, AES-256 encrypted, compressed copy in your destination folder. Point that folder at OneDrive, Dropbox, a NAS, or any sync target and you have automatic offsite backup. We do not provide a hosted backup service - we believe you should choose and control your own destination rather than depend on us to keep your data.
Is the file safe to email to my accountant?
Functionally yes - it is one file and opens identically on their machine if they have FreshLedger Pro. Practically, email is not a secure transport for financial records. We recommend using the File > Backup Copy command to produce an encrypted .flp.zip archive with a password you share over a separate channel (phone, signal, in person), then sending that archive via email or a file-share link. Your accountant decrypts, opens, makes adjusting journal entries, and sends the updated file back. All changes appear in the audit log.
What happens if the file gets corrupted?
SQLite is one of the most thoroughly tested database engines in existence and corruption from normal use is rare, but it can happen from hardware failure, abrupt power loss during a write, or a failing disk. FreshLedger Pro runs an integrity check on open and offers File > Verify Database on demand. If damage is detected, restore from your most recent backup - this is exactly why the single-file backup model matters. We also include a repair utility that can often recover a partially damaged file by rebuilding indexes and salvaging readable pages.
Can two people work in the same company file at once?
No. FreshLedger Pro is single-user-at-a-time per company file. When you open a company, the file is locked; a second user opening the same file over a network share gets read-only access. This is an honest limitation - if you need concurrent multi-user accounting, QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise or a cloud product fits better. For a solo owner, a bookkeeper-plus-CPA workflow (where the file is handed off), or a small office where one person does the books, single-user is usually fine and avoids an entire category of sync conflicts.