About your Test Company/Sandbox

Create Test Company/Sandbox

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Accessing the Test Company/Sandbox:

From the CustomBooks™ application Home Page or Workspace, click on the “Test Company” under the Admin Panel section. You can also access it through the left panel menu, go to Admin Panel > Test Company.

Populating Your Test Company:

You have 3 options to choose how you want to populate your Test Company/Sandbox – with data from your live account, with data from a fictitious company, or no data at all.

1. With Data from Your Live Account: This option allows you to clone or copy your current live data into the sandbox for a realistic testing environment.
   
2. With Data from a Sample Data: Use pre-generated data from a sample or fictitious company to explore features without using your actual data.
   
3. With No Data: Start with a blank slate to manually enter data and customize the test company/sandbox to your specific needs.
   
   

The Test Company/Sandbox creation process can take up to 30 minutes. The window can be closed and you may continue to work normally. Once the Test Company/Sandbox data is created, you will receive an email alerting you that the test company/sandbox data is complete and ready for use.

Refresh and Delete the data in your Test Company

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Your data will be refreshed once every 30 days. You may choose to refresh more frequently by clicking the buttons on the Test Company’s start page: “Refresh from Your Live Account” - copy your current live data into the test company/sandbox, “Refresh to the Default Template”- use pre-generated data from a sample or fictitious company, or if you wish to remove data from your Test Company, click the “Erase All Data”.

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Distinguishing your Live Account from your Test Company

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1. Color. The Test Company/Sandbox has a different color to differentiate from your real company at glance.
   
2. '***Test Company/Sandbox***' will appear near your title.
   
3. The URL will have the word “sandbox" in it. For example, https://apps7.custombooks.com/sandbox/1102335
   
4. On the Test Company/Sandbox Home Page, you will see '***Test Company/Sandbox***' in color green.
   
   
5. 

1. Before testing your import in your Test Company, copy over your live data to the Test Company. This will ensure you will be conducting a test against the same data when you import into your live account.
   
2. After mapping your fields, save the import mapping file to a text file and save it with your import spreadsheet so you won't have to map the fields again in your live account.  Be sure to use the same import files when importing into your live account.
   
3. After you have imported the data, run some checks to make sure that the data came in properly. Here are some questions you can answer after your import which will help ensure all went as planned:
   
1. Document Imports
   
1. Did the transactions save or post correctly? Go to Show > General Journal to look at the ledger entries.
   
2. Is the correct company on the document?
   
3. Did sales tax calculate correctly?
   
4. Are due dates/payment terms correct?
   
5. Do the totals look correct?
   
6. Is the document linked to other documents correctly in the transaction (use Show dropdown > Transactions)
   
7. Do the document statuses look correct?
   
2. Chart of Accounts Imports
   
1. Check the Admin Panel > Accounting Settings > Default Accounts - do all of the default accounts look correct?
   
2. Go to Accounting > Chart of Accounts > click the Columns dropdown > Manage Columns > Show Available Fields and select Retained Earnings. Locate the Retained Earnings account in the list. Is the name what you expected? Is there more than one retained earnings account?
   
3. Do the account types look correct?
   
4. If there is a parent/child relationship, does that look correct?
   
5. Are there any extra accounts? Missing Accounts? Do the account balances appear to be correct?
   
3. Items
   
1. If importing balances, does Quantity on Hand look correct?
   
2. Did the UPC field import (if filled)?
   
3. Is the default vendor correct?
   
4. Did the item category import correctly?
   
4. Companies (Customers and Vendors)
   
1. Do the default Expense, Sales, and AP/AR Accounts look correct?
   
2. Did custom fields populate?
   
3. Did the addresses import correctly with Address, city and state in the right fields?
   
4. If anything looks incorrect, you can make the necessary adjustments in your import spreadsheet or data mapping file before importing into your live account. If there are going to be problems, it's much easier to have them happen in your test account than try and clean them up in your live account.