Well, if there was a "Smiley Face" with a sheepish look, I'd use it.  We haven't archived anything yet.  I know I need to look into it to see what we should be doing.
I am sure that any added capabilities can do nothing but enhance the product.

Does DBA Classic automatically archive GL Transactions?
One can only call up GL transaction history (GL-E) for 2 years earlier than current fiscal year start date.   We have been using DBA since 1998 and cannot access GL-E history for calendar years 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001.  Also, one can only print Financial Statements for the current year and 2 years past.
 
Doesn't this indicate that some sort of archiving is already taking place? ???

GL Transactions are retained forever unless you run AM-I to consolidate them.  You can see the transactions prior to 2 years past in GL-C and GL-D.
 
As for the other archiving, once a Sales Order is closed, the detail is retained in the Invoice files that came from the order so I am not sure what purpose there would be in a Sales Order archive, it already exists inthe invoice files.

Quote from Lynn Pantic   on 12/29/04 at 10:31:03:

 
Actually, what the Invoice file shows is Shipments, not orders. If you make multiple shipments from the same SO it can be difficult to reconstruct.

HB:
 
So by doing this you create a snapshot of each year.  I can see the logic in that but does the "current" company still contain all the data?  Do you have to change companies to look things up?

We like to retain SO and Invoices for 2 years (that means we have a total of 3 years by the end of every year).  
The copy of the company contains 3 years if it was created on Jan 1 of a new year.
Example:
Our current live company contains info for 2002, 2003, 2004 on Jan 01.  
I have created a company called "02" with data containing 02,03 and 04.
After creating the new "02" company I will purge from the live company data pertaining to 2002 (SM-J-J and SM-J-K etc).
This leaves me with data for 2 years, i.e. 2003 and 2004 plus new data from 2005 in the live company.  
 
I repeat above steps at the end of 2005