When I say "it saves everything as you go along", it is assuming that you are applying your changes. You need to always do one of three things in order to have your data be officially entered into the database:

1) hit the apply button
2) hit another item line
3) hit the item line you are working on

one IMPORTANT thing to remember: You can NOT enter chips into the preloaded databases. That is for reference only. You can copy and paste things from the preloaded database into your own just fine, but the preloaded db is a read only file.

When you want to select chips from the preloaded database to copy over to your own, you can do it one at a time, or you can use the standard windows functions to select groups (shift + select, or control + select). You then hit the "copy" button. Then go to your own collection and hit the "paste" button. All of the fields and scans will be pasted.