A read-only company only can be restored as a read-only company" in Sage 50
Sage 50 is telling you the backup you are restoring was marked read-only, and it will stay read-only after restore.
You are seeing this message: “A read-only company only can be restored as a read-only company.”
In plain terms, Sage 50 is refusing to give you a normal, editable company after the restore. The backup you are restoring came from a company that was opened in read-only mode, and that flag travels with the data. The software is not broken. It is enforcing a rule: a read-only source produces a read-only result.
What a read-only company actually is
Sage 50 can open a company file without allowing changes. This is common with archived years, files kept only for reference, or copies opened on a machine where the user does not have write access. When a backup is made from such a company, the read-only status is part of what gets saved.
Restoring that backup does not strip the flag. You get back exactly what was saved: a company you can look at but not post to.
Why this happens
The usual causes are straightforward. The company was deliberately archived as read-only at year end. Or the file was opened from a location without write permission, such as a burned disc or a restricted network folder, and Sage 50 treated it as read-only from that point on. Less often, someone restored the file before and accepted a read-only result, then backed that up again.
The message is simply Sage 50 warning you before the restore finishes, so you are not surprised when the restored company refuses to accept entries.
What to try first
Check where the backup came from. If the original company is still available and opens normally as editable, make a fresh backup from that copy and restore from it instead. That is the cleanest fix.
If the original only exists as the read-only backup, look at the folder permissions where you restored the file. On some setups the read-only state is tied to Windows file attributes rather than the data itself, and clearing the read-only attribute on the restored files, then reopening the company, is enough. Whether this works depends on how the flag was set, which depends on the file.
When the data needs professional attention
If the company stays read-only no matter what you do, the flag is embedded in the data rather than the folder. There is no supported switch inside Sage 50 to convert a read-only company back to an editable one. Our engineers can examine the file and, in most cases, lift the restriction or extract the data into a fully working company. Because the outcome depends on the file itself, we assess it first at no cost.
If your real goal is to move this data into QuickBooks rather than keep it in Sage 50, a read-only source does not prevent conversion. See our Sage 50 to QuickBooks conversion service for how that works.
A useful next step
Stop before restoring over anything. Make a working copy of the backup and test on that, so a failed attempt cannot cost you the only good copy. Then send us the file for a free evaluation and we will tell you whether it can be returned to a normal editable company, and what is involved.