We moved!

Help articles have been migrated to the new Help and Support. You can find help for your products and accounts, discover FAQs, explore training, and contact us!

This topic explains how to move Accounting CS and existing data from one server to another.

Do not copy Accounting CS from one server to another. We recommend that you backup the current database, install a fresh copy of Accounting CS to the new server, and then restore the database on the new server as outlined by the following steps.

Backup the current database

1. While sitting at the original file server, open your firm's database in Accounting CS.
2. Choose File > Backup.
3. Click Browse next to the Backup file field to choose a location where the backup will be saved that will be accessible from the new server.
4. Click OK to begin the backup process.

Before moving to the new server, you may want to verify the version of SQL being used on the old server. This is important because you can't restore a database to an older version of SQL. For example, if your old server is running SQL 2014, you need to have SQL 2014 or newer installed on your new server. See How to identify your SQL Server Version and Edition for instructions.

Perform the installation of Accounting CS on the new server

1. Go to the new server.
2. If you haven't already, download the latest version of Accounting CS from the My Account page. Click the Downloads link on the My Account page to access a list of available downloads. You must log in to your CS Professional Suite Web Account to access the download.
3. Accounting CS comes packaged with Microsoft SQL Server 2014 SP3 Express. If you need to install another version of SQL, you will need to run the Microsoft SQL installation before installing Accounting CS. See Upgrading or installing a Microsoft SQL instance for more details.
4. Proceed through the installation steps by running the installer downloaded in Step 2. See the Installation Toolkit for further instructions.
   • Step 1: Install the shared files to the new server's shared drive.
   • Step 2: Configure the database server. In this step, you can create a new instance of Microsoft SQL Server. Use an existing instance only if you have configured a full version of Microsoft SQL Server on the new server.
   • Step 3: Install Accounting CS on this computer. This step allows you to install a desktop setup of the application on the server. It is important to perform this step in order to restore the original database.

Restore the original database from the backup file

1. After Accounting CS is installed, launch the application and log into the FIRM database. Use ADMIN as the staff ID.
2. Choose Help > About and click Download Licenses. Enter your Firm ID and license PIN and click Next to download and apply the licenses.
3. Open Microsoft SQL Management Studio on the new server and restore the firm database from the backup file you created. See Restoring the firm database using Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio for detailed instructions.

Perform desktop setups on the workstations, if necessary

• If the new server drive letter and path to the X:\WinCSI\Accounting CS or X:\WinCSI\Workpapers CS folder is the same on the new server, you should not need to perform desktop setups at the workstations.
• If the drive letter of the new server has changed, or the path to the folder has changed, you will need to perform desktop setups on all of the workstations.
• To perform a desktop setup, browse to the X:\WinCSI\Accounting CS\DESKTOP or X:\WinCSI\Workpapers CS\DESKTOP folder from the workstation and run the Setup.exe file.

If you cannot access Accounting CS from your workstation after performing the previous desktop setup steps, uninstall the application from the workstation, and reinstall the desktop setup again.

Was this article helpful?

Yes No

Submit