Back up, export and restore your data
Everything Fleetola holds for you can leave with you. The System page in Settings keeps the three tools side by side: a backup of your whole organisation, spreadsheet exports for your accountant, and a restore that puts a backup back.
The two backups
Full archive is every record and every document - the photos, the signed PDFs, the lot - as one ZIP. This is the one to keep: only what a backup contains can ever be restored from it. A big fleet's archive runs to hundreds of megabytes, so give it a minute to prepare.
Records only is just the database as a JSON file, with no photos or PDFs. It is small and quick, and a fine habit between full archives - but restoring from it can never bring back a document it never held.
Where to find it: Settings → System → Backup
Spreadsheets for your accountant
The Spreadsheet exports panel downloads one table at a time as a CSV any spreadsheet program opens: Vehicles, Customers, Payments, Expenses and Service history. Beside them, Contracts & photos backup zips every contract with its photos and signed PDFs. These are copies to hand somebody - a CSV cannot be restored.
What a restore does
A restore replaces this organisation's data with what is in the file - it is not a merge. Anything created after that backup was taken is lost when you confirm. Two things are handled more carefully: signature evidence is merged rather than replaced, so no audit rows are ever removed, and documents already on the server that the archive does not mention are left alone. Pending signing links, renter invitations and signed-in mobile sessions all stop working the moment a restore runs - re-send them afterwards.
Run a restore
- Click Choose file and pick a backup - the ZIP archive or the JSON. A backup belonging to a different organisation is refused.
- Click Check what it will do. The server reads the file and shows the plan before anything changes: how old the backup is, the rows you have now against the rows in the file, the net change, and which tables shrink most.
- A red blocker means the restore is guaranteed to fail - the wrong backup version, another organisation's file, or a value already used by a different organisation on this deployment - and the Restore button stays off until it is dealt with.
- Click Restore, read the confirmation, and type your organisation's name exactly as it appears. Nothing runs until it matches.
- The result stays on screen until you dismiss it. Read it - it lists anything you need to re-send - then reload the app.
Restored the wrong file?
Before every restore, Fleetola automatically takes a restore point - a snapshot of the organisation as it stood the moment before. They are listed in the Restore panel with their date and row count. Roll back puts one back, behind the same typed-name confirmation, and it is itself a replace: anything done since that restore is lost with it.
Tip: Restore points are kept for 7 days. Check a restore looks right the day you run it - a week later, the way back is gone.
Why a staff member can't see the buttons
Backup and restore are owner-only, whatever permissions a member holds - a member sees an Owner only badge in place of the backup buttons, and the Restore panel is not shown to members at all. The spreadsheet exports follow each member's own section permissions instead: a member who can view Payments can export it.
Related guides
- Invite your team - Give your staff their own login, with only the sections they need.
- Your first day on Fleetola - A quick checklist to get live fast.
- Switch parts of Fleetola off - Hide modules you do not use - nothing is deleted, and only the owner can.
- Your Fleetola subscription - What you pay Fleetola, how the per-vehicle bill works, and where its invoices live.