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Opening a Google Cloud backup account

Step by step, open a Google Cloud account in your company's name and connect it to Air-M for daily backups. About 15 minutes.

Before the service is activated, every company must have its own backup account in Google Cloud. Air-M sends a complete copy of your data to that account every night. The account and everything in it belong to your company, not to Air-M. This guide covers only opening that backup account and connecting it to Air-M.

It takes about 15 minutes. If you would like help, email support@air-m.online and our team will walk you through it on a video call.

What you need

  • A Google account in your company's name, ideally a work address (for example it@company.co.id or a Google Workspace account), not an employee's personal email. Turn on two-step verification for this account.
  • A credit or debit card with the Visa or Mastercard logo for Google's billing. Debit cards from banks that allow international online transactions work; make sure that feature is turned on for your card. Prepaid cards are not accepted.
  • An Air-M account with the Owner or Admin role.

Step 1: Sign up for Google Cloud

  1. Go to console.cloud.google.com and sign in with the company Google account.
  2. Click Start free, choose Indonesia as the country and accept the terms of service.
  3. Enter the company name, address and card details.
  4. Google may hold a small amount (about US$0–1) to verify the card. This is not a charge and disappears by itself within 1–14 business days.

New accounts get US$300 of free credit, valid for 90 days.

Step 2: Activate the full account

Do not skip this step. Google closes free trial accounts automatically after 90 days and stops everything in them. If the account is not activated within 30 days after that, its contents are deleted permanently, including all your backups.

  1. Open the ☰ menu → Billing → Overview.
  2. Click Upgrade (or Activate full account) and confirm.

Any remaining US$300 credit stays usable until the 90 days are up. You are only billed once the credit is used up.

Step 3: Create a project for backups

  1. Click the project picker at the top of the page, then New project.
  2. Give it a name such as Your Company Air-M Backup and click Create.
  3. Make sure the new project is selected at the top of the page.

Step 4: Copy the commands from Air-M

  1. In another tab, sign in to Air-M as an Owner or Admin.
  2. Open Team & settings → Your data and backups.
  3. In the Google Cloud Storage bucket box, type a bucket name. It must be unique across all of Google Cloud and use only lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens, for example your-company-airm-backup.
  4. Click Setup guide. Air-M shows three commands already filled in with your bucket name and Air-M's service account. Copy all three.

Step 5: Run the commands in Cloud Shell

  1. Go back to Google Cloud. Click the Cloud Shell icon (a box with >_) at the top right. A terminal opens at the bottom of the screen.
  2. Check that the prompt shows your backup project's ID. If it doesn't, type gcloud config set project YOUR-PROJECT-ID and press Enter.
  3. Paste the three commands from Air-M and press Enter. If an Authorize window appears, click Authorize.

What the three commands do:

CommandWhat it does
buckets createCreates a private bucket in Jakarta (asia-southeast2) that cannot be reached publicly
--retention-period=30dNo one, including you and Air-M, can delete a backup for 30 days
add-iam-policy-bindingLets Air-M only add files. Air-M cannot read, list, change or delete anything in the bucket

Step 6: Connect and test in Air-M

  1. Back in Air-M, on the Your data and backups page, click Save.
  2. Click Test connection. If it works, a message confirms that Air-M can write to your bucket.
  3. Click Back up now for the first backup.
  4. In Google Cloud, open ☰ → Cloud Storage → Buckets → your bucket → the airm-backup/ folder. The first backup ZIP is there.

You're done. From tonight Air-M sends a complete backup every day at about 01:30 WIB, and the yellow Daily backup is not set up reminder disappears from Air-M.

Costs and keeping the account safe

  • Google bills storage directly to your company, based on how much data you keep. For ERP data this is usually small. See the rates for the Jakarta region on the Cloud Storage pricing page.
  • Set a spending alert: ☰ → Billing → Budgets & alerts → Create budget, for example Rp100.000 a month. Google emails you when costs approach that amount.
  • Give at least two people in the company (for example the director and the head of finance) access to the project through ☰ → IAM & Admin → IAM → Grant access, so backups can still be opened if one person leaves.
  • If needed, the Air-M team can help set up automatic deletion of very old backups to keep costs down.

If something goes wrong

Message or problemWhat to do
Card refused during sign-upAsk your bank to enable international online transactions, or use another card (not prepaid). Google refuses some debit cards that ask for an OTP on every payment; credit cards usually go through more easily
Bucket name already takenChoose another name in Air-M, copy the commands again and rerun them
Billing error when creating the bucketThe billing account is not linked to the project. Open ☰ → Billing → Manage billing accounts and link it to the backup project
Access denied on Test connectionThe third command was not run, or was run in another project. Run it again in the right project
Bucket not foundThe bucket name in Air-M doesn't match the one you created. Check the spelling

How to use backup files and recover data is covered in Your data, exports and daily backups.