Backup & Restore

Hisaabo lets you export a complete snapshot of your organization’s data and restore it into a new, empty organization. This is useful for migrating between instances (e.g. cloud to self-hosted), creating a test copy of your data, or disaster recovery.

Exporting a backup

Go to Settings > Data to download a full backup.

1. Navigate to Settings in the sidebar
2. Click the Data tab
3. In the Full backup (restorable) section (owner-only), click Download backup
4. A .tar.gz archive downloads to your browser

The archive contains all businesses, parties, items, invoices, payments, expenses, bank accounts, and other records in your organization. It uses NDJSON (newline-delimited JSON) format internally.

Limits: You can export up to 2 times per day per organization.

Who can export: Only organization owners can request a full backup. Non-owners can still use Export as CSV in the same tab to download the current business as spreadsheet-friendly CSVs (not restorable).

Restoring a backup

Restore happens during the initial setup of a new organization — before any business is created.

1. Create a new account (or log in to an existing account with no organization)
2. On the Get started screen, choose Restore from a backup
3. Select your .tar.gz backup file
4. Confirm the restore
5. All data is imported preserving original IDs
6. Click Reload to see your restored data

Empty organization required

Restore only works on an organization with zero businesses. If you’ve already created a business, you cannot restore into that organization. Create a new empty organization instead.

One-way operation

Restore cannot be undone. Make sure you’re importing the correct backup file before confirming.

Using the CLI

The CLI supports both export and restore without needing a browser:

# Export
hisaabo export --tenant my-company -o backup.tar.gz

# Restore into an empty tenant
hisaabo restore --tenant new-company -i backup.tar.gz --yes

The CLI commands only require authentication and a tenant — no business selection needed. See the CLI reference for full details.

Using the API

For programmatic access, the backup system uses a two-step token flow:

1. Export: Call selfExport.request with a tenantId to get a signed download URL, then GET that URL to stream the archive.
2. Import: Call selfImport.request with a tenantId to get a signed upload URL, then POST the gzipped archive to that URL.

Both endpoints use protectedProcedure (session auth only) — no x-business-id header is needed.

See the API documentation for request/response schemas and code examples.

What’s included in a backup

The backup archive contains every table in your organization’s database:

• Businesses (all businesses in the organization)
• Parties (customers and suppliers)
• Items (products, services, variants)
• Invoices (sales, purchases, and all document types)
• Payments and payment allocations
• Expenses and expense categories
• Bank accounts and transactions
• Recurring invoice templates
• Document numbering sequences
• All other configuration and transactional data

User accounts and organization membership are not included — the backup contains business data only.

Frequently asked questions

Can I restore into an organization that already has data? No. Restore requires a completely empty organization (zero businesses). This prevents ID conflicts and ensures data integrity.

Can I export from cloud and restore to self-hosted (or vice versa)? Yes, as long as the Hisaabo versions are compatible. The archive includes a schema checksum that the import engine validates.

How large are backup files? It depends on your data volume. The archive is gzip-compressed, so a business with a few thousand invoices typically produces a file under 10 MB.

Is the backup encrypted? The archive itself is not encrypted — it’s a standard gzipped tar file. If you need encryption at rest, encrypt the file after downloading (e.g. with gpg or your storage provider’s encryption).