Creating a Company File for Testing and Training The best way to learn QuickBooks is to use it, and QuickBooks provides sample files for this purpose. However, it's much easier to understand what you're doing if the company file matches your "real" file. Creating and using a test file that's based on your own business makes a great deal of sense. It's a way to experiment with complicated transactions, or to find the quickest method for performing tasks that have multiple approaches. More important, it's a file you can open to train users without worrying about doing any damage to your company records. In this article, we present a quick and easy way to create a test company from your QuickBooks company file. This is a simple four-step process: backup, restore,change the company name, and create a test user. Back Up With a Different Filename Start by creating a backup of your company file (choose Back Up from the File menu). In the Filename field of the Backup dialog, QuickBooks automatically enters the filename for your current file, followed by the extension .QBB. Change that filename to "Test.QBB", or "Training.QBB", or another similar name. Click OK to back up the file. Restore Using the New Filename Now you need to restore the file so you can use it for training and testing. Choose Restore from the File menu. At the top of the Restore dialog, select the filename you used when you created the backup. The bottom half of the Restore dialog displays the filename QuickBooks will use for this restored file. By default, the name is the name of your current company file, with the extension .QBW. You must change that filename to the filename you used for the backup (e.g. test.qbw). Click Restore to open your new training/testing company file. If you didn't remember to change the filename for the restored file, QuickBooks issues a warning message that you're about to overwrite your existing company file with this new file, and asks if you're sure you want to do this. Click No and change that restored filename as described here. Rename the Company to Match the New Filename When the file opens, the QuickBooks Title Bar continues to display the name of your original, "real", company file. That's because the display name of the company file is taken from the Company Information dialog. This is confusing, and dangerous. Open the Company Information dialog (from the Company menu), and change the name of the company to match the filename you selected. Create a Test User QuickBooks automatically opens the last company loaded, so to avoid having a user add 'real' transactions to the test company accidentally (thinking it's the real company), provide a user reminder by creating a new user for the test company. You can delete any users that existed in the test company except for the Admin user, and then add a user named TESTING ONLY (which should be a reminder to anyone who opens the file). Be sure to log on to the company with the TESTING ONLY user name, so that name automatically appears the next time the company file opens. Your training company file is ready for use.