PaintOps Help
Backing Up Your PaintOps Data
Your quotes, jobs, customers, financials, and job photos are your business. Here’s how to make sure you never lose them, and how to hand your records to an accountant or move to a new site.
The short version
- Set up an automatic, off-site full backup of your whole WordPress site (database and files). This is your real safety net, and it includes your job photos and can be restored.
- Use the PaintOps “Download PaintOps Data” export as a handy extra copy of your records for your accountant, a spare, or a move. It does not include photo files, so it isn’t a substitute for a full backup.
- Test a restore once so you know it actually works before you ever need it.
Why this matters
Websites go down. Hosting accounts get suspended, a plugin or theme update occasionally breaks a site, hard drives fail, and sites get hacked. Any painting business that runs its quoting, scheduling, job history, and financials through PaintOps has years of hard-won records living in one place. A good backup means a bad day costs you an hour, not your business.
There are two different tools here, and it’s worth understanding what each one is for.
Full site backup
A copy of your entire WordPress site (database and all files, including every job photo and receipt image) that can be restored with a few clicks. Set it to run automatically and store it off-site.
PaintOps data export
A one-click download of your PaintOps records as spreadsheet files. Perfect for your accountant, a spare copy, or moving to a new site, though it doesn’t include image files.
Where your PaintOps data actually lives
Knowing this makes the rest make sense. PaintOps stores your information in two different places inside WordPress:
| What | Where it lives | In the PaintOps export? |
|---|---|---|
| Quotes, jobs, customers, payments, expenses, worker hours, vehicle log, invoices, settings | The WordPress database (records) | Yes, one spreadsheet per type |
| Job photos & receipt images | The WordPress Media Library (image files on your server) | No, image files aren’t in the export |
That’s the key reason a full site backup matters: only a backup that captures both the database and the files will bring your photos back.
Don’t rely on the PaintOps export alone
The PaintOps data export saves your records, but not your photo and receipt image files, and it has no one-click “restore” button. Treat it as a bonus copy, not your only backup. For true protection, set up a full site backup below.
Recommended: set up automatic full backups
The most reliable way to protect everything is a dedicated WordPress backup plugin. It backs up your database and all your files on a schedule, sends the copy somewhere safe off your server, and restores in a few clicks. We suggest UpdraftPlus. It’s free, widely used, and does everything a painting business needs. (If your web host offers its own automatic backups, that’s a great second layer, but don’t rely only on backups stored on the same server as your site.)
Setting up UpdraftPlus (about 10 minutes, once)
- Install the plugin. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins → Add New, search for “UpdraftPlus,” then click Install Now and Activate.
- Open its settings. Go to Settings → UpdraftPlus Backups, then click the Settings tab.
- Choose a schedule. Set both the files and database backup schedule to Daily or Weekly, and tell it to keep several recent copies (for example, keep the last 4).
- Send it off-site. Under “Choose your remote storage,” pick a cloud destination (Google Drive and Dropbox are both free and easy) and follow the prompts to connect your account. Storing backups off your server is what protects you if the whole site or host goes down.
- Save changes. Scroll down and click Save Changes.
- Run your first backup now. Back on the Backup / Restore tab, click Backup Now, make sure both database and files are checked, and let it finish. Confirm the copy appears in your cloud storage.
Test a restore once
A backup you’ve never restored is just a hope. After your first backup, use the Restore button in UpdraftPlus at least once (or ask your web person to) so you know the process (and your files) actually work. The button walks you through choosing what to bring back.
Using the PaintOps data export
Inside PaintOps, open the Business page and find the Backup & Data section at the bottom. Click Download PaintOps Data (.zip) and your browser saves a ZIP file.
What’s inside
- A data folder with one spreadsheet (CSV) per type of record: jobs, customers, payments, job costs, worker hours, vehicle log, business expenses, invoices, and more. These open in Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers.
- A settings file with your PaintOps configuration (your sensitive keys are deliberately left out for safety).
- A README that explains exactly what the file is and isn’t.
When it’s useful
- Tax time. Hand your accountant a clean, spreadsheet-friendly copy of the year’s jobs, payments, and expenses.
- An extra copy. Keep a periodic download in your own cloud drive as a belt-and-suspenders record of your books.
- Moving or reference. Take your records with you, or pull specific data into your own spreadsheets.
What it doesn’t do
- It doesn’t include your job photos or receipt images, which are files in your Media Library, covered by a full site backup.
- There’s no one-click re-import. The spreadsheets are for reference, your accountant, or a developer restoring data by hand.
How restoring works
If something goes wrong, your full site backup is what brings everything back, both records and photos. With UpdraftPlus, you open the plugin, choose a recent backup, click Restore, and pick which parts to bring back. If your host keeps its own backups, their support team can usually roll your site back to an earlier day as well.
The PaintOps export is not a restore tool. If you ever need to rebuild records from it, that’s a manual job, which is another reason the automatic full backup is the piece you don’t want to skip.
A simple routine that works
- Automatic full backup of your whole site, running daily or weekly, saved to Google Drive or Dropbox.
- A quick PaintOps data export before any big change (a major update, a site move) and once at year-end for your accountant.
- One test restore after you first set things up, so you know it works.
- A yearly check that backups are still running and still landing in your cloud storage.
Questions painters ask
- Isn’t the PaintOps export enough on its own?
- No. It saves your records but not your photo and receipt image files, and it can’t restore your site. Pair it with a full site backup.
- Do I need the paid version of a backup plugin?
- For most painting businesses, the free version of UpdraftPlus covers scheduled backups, off-site storage, and restore. Paid tiers mainly add conveniences like more storage options and backups triggered automatically before updates.
- My host says they back up my site. Am I covered?
- It’s a good second layer, but host backups sometimes live on the same server and aren’t always easy to restore yourself. Keeping your own off-site copy means you’re never dependent on a single provider.
- How often should I back up?
- If you add jobs and photos most days, choose a daily full backup. If you’re lighter, weekly is fine. Either way, keep several recent copies so you can go back further than just yesterday.
- Where do the PaintOps export downloads go?
- Wherever your browser saves downloads. Move important ones into your own cloud drive so they’re not sitting only on one computer.