Keep-It-Simple Accounting Software

Google Drive

How to Share Your Data Using Google Drive

Google Drive is a free service that lets you backup and share your data between multiple computers.  You can use it to store your Cashbook data file, and access the data from a different computer in another location (but if its in the same building, then use networking).

To get it working, you first need to download and install the “Backup and Sync” application from Google, onto each of your computers.

Note:  Google also offer a similar product called “Drive File Stream” but it works differently and will not work with Cashbook.

Setting Up Your Computers

On your main computer (which currently has the Cashbook):-

  1. Make a copy of the entire “Cashbook Data” folder (by default, this will be found in your “Documents” or “My Documents” folder)
  2. Open the “Google Drive” folder on your Computer (if you don’t know where this is, click on the “Backup and Sync from Google” icon in your system tray, by the clock, and click on the folder icon)
  3. Paste the “Cashbook Data” folder into the “Google Drive” folder
  4. You will momentarily notice a small “synchronizing” icon appear over the “Cashbook Data” folder.  This will soon change to a “tick” icon, indicating that your “Cashbook Data” folder (and the files within it) have been successfully synchronized (or backed up to the cloud)

If you now go to another of your computers which also has Google’s “Backup and Sync” app installed, you should be able to open the “Google Drive” folder and see your “Cashbook Data” there.

Now for each computer, you need to set the “Data File Folder” as follows:-

  1. Open the “Cashbook Data” folder from within your “Google Drive” folder
  2. Inside the “Cashbook Data” folder, double-click your Cashbook data file (*.CB file)
  3. You’ll see a warning message about the Cashbook not being in the “Data File Folder”. Click “OK”, and then go to the Setup Wizard and on the “General Setup” screen, change the “Data File Folder” to match the path to your new Google Drive folder
  4. When you exit the software, Google Drive will take an hour or so to synchronize the data to the cloud (making the updated data accessible from your other computers).

Notes:-

  • If Google Drive doesn’t appear to be synchronizing properly on one of your computers, click on the “Google Drive” icon (in the system tray, down by the clock) and choose “Pause”.  Then, click it again and choose “Resume”.
  • In our tests with Google Drive, we found that there can be quite a long delay before the synchronization is done – unlike Dropbox which was a lot faster.
  • If you access the Cashbook from more than one location at the same time, then you’ll get a “[Conflict]” version of the file and will need to choose which one you want to keep going with (see “Help with Conflicted Copies” below).
  • For Google Drive’s “Backup and Sync” app to sync properly, the safest approach is to make sure that your computers are turned on and connected to the internet all the time, so that the files are always up to date.

Help with Conflicted Copies

If you’re having trouble with a conflicted copy of your Cashbook data file, please click here.