Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your BKU file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert BKU to another file type
To convert BKU Backups to another format, you need Sage Timeslips or other Backup software.
Convert a file to BKU
To convert other file formats to the "Application Archive" file type, you need software like Sage Timeslips or a similar tool.
About BKU files
A .BKU file acts as a proprietary safety deposit box, most commonly generated by Sage Timeslips to secure time tracking and billing databases. These files are essential for law firms and service professionals, encapsulating client history, slip data, and accounts receivable into a single compressed archive. A significant minority of .BKU files are system configuration backups for medical and laboratory hardware, specifically GE Healthcare Voluson ultrasound systems and Agilent BioTek Gen5 software.
The primary problem with .BKU files is their inaccessibility outside their native environment. In the context of Timeslips, users often possess a backup file but lack the specific (and expensive) software version required to restore it. While the file container is often a standard ZIP renamed to .BKU, the internal data consists of proprietary database files (like Paradox or Firebird) that standard text editors cannot parse. This creates a vendor lock-in scenario where accessing your own historical billing data requires a paid subscription. Medical .BKU files are even more restrictive, often binary-encoded and linked to specific machine firmware.
To break this lock-in, the most practical workflow involves inspecting the container and migrating the data. For Timeslips archives, renaming the file to ZIP allows for the extraction of internal assets. To make the actual data usable for audits or migration, the internal database tables should be converted to CSV or XLSX for analysis in Microsoft Excel. For long-term archiving of the billing reports contained within, converting to PDF/A ensures compliance without requiring the original software.
Convert.Guru analyzes your BKU file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert BKU file to , you can use Sage Timeslips or similar software from the "Time & Billing Data Backup" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert files to BKU, try Sage Timeslips or another comparable tool in the "Time & Billing Data Backup" category.
The BKU Converter Story
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our BKU converter.