smartvault – Cooper Mann Consulting

March 12, 2013

Online Document Storage = Smarter Business Continuity

It is never safe to take business-supporting services for granted, yet many business owners today do just that. Reliance upon Internet connectivity, the dial-tone of the 21^st century, has created the potential for a negative cascading effect on infrastructure and the delivery of business services, even in the case of a minor disruption somewhere along the line. Natural disasters and other occurrences can have a devastating impact on business and personal lives, and it has been proven that organizations with solid plans for reacting to emergency situations have a far greater chance to recover than those without.

Business continuity management describes the recovery of the business or service from outage or disruption, and a solid business continuity plan includes considerations for people as well as systems, because it takes a combination of both and knowing what do to in the event of an emergency. Businesses with disaster plans will always do better than those without, and training employees how to react swiftly when necessary by bringing backup systems online or relocating to offsite work areas is essential to minimizing downtime and reducing the impact of the outage. This is where SmartVault’s online document storage and the cloud can make a big difference between success and failure of a business continuity and recovery effort.

One of the first steps in developing a business continuity plan is creating a means to protect business information. Digital documents and files that reside on local PCs and networks should be protected and archived in a secure central document storage system, allowing for storage and retrieval of documents as well as facilitating collaboration and sharing of information throughout the organization. Using SmartVault for online document storage gives you a secure online vault for maintaining essential business information. When a business adopts the SmartVault solution and elects to store business documents and files in the secure SmartVault system, they have implemented a critical first step towards establishing business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities. Preserving business documents and files in the cloud-based SmartVault solution allows the business to retain access to critical information even in the event of a natural disaster, fire or theft. Documents are stored safely in the SmartVault system, accessible via any Internet-accessible location, so relocated workers can access what they need when they need it.

SmartVault is an easy-to-use online document storage solution that seamlessly integrates with popular business applications, like Microsoft Outlook and Intuit QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online. Working with SmartVault is simple and intuitive, so it is easy to apply the solution to handling most business documents and digital information. When online document storage is fully-integrated into the workflow of the business, it helps ensure that data is consistently captured and stored, reducing the potential for lost documents and increasing the overall capability of the business to continue operations.

Disaster planning means thinking ahead to what could happen, and then taking steps to protect the business in case it does. SmartVault is one of the applications in the business toolkit that addresses the daily needs of business document and information storage and management. When disaster strikes (and it will) SmartVault is there and working, helping businesses continue to store, access and share the information they need to keep the business in business. For more on SmartVault’s secure online document storage solution, visit http://www.smartvault.com/features/online-document-storage/

jmbunnyfeet

Make Sense?

January 8, 2013October 28, 2014

SmartVault Scan to QuickBooks – When you need to know, go to the source

One of the biggest challenges in business bookkeeping is keeping track of the paper documents and items which back up the data in the accounting system. If you’ve ever had to produce an expense report, or provide a receipt for a business purchase, you know what I’m talking about. That piece of paper is the supporting information for a financial transaction, proof that the entry in the books matches what was actually done. This is what is referred to as the “source” document, and it’s pretty important to keep around, especially in the event of an audit.

Keeping track of paper receipts, bills and other documents which support bookkeeping or accounting transactions can be quite a challenge for any business. In many cases, notes are made in journal entries or in transaction descriptions identifying source documents, but finding the document then becomes an adventure in the paper filing system where you hope the paper you’re looking for is actually in the file referenced. Just the time it takes to organize, store and then later find those documents makes the whole process inefficient, time-consuming, and costly.

What makes sense for many businesses is to attach those source documents right to the transaction in the accounting system. When the accounting was manual, it was easy to do this – simply paperclip the invoice or receipt to the page with the journal entry. In the world of electronic information and computerized accounting software, the process is a bit different, but not much if you use SmartVault and QuickBooks together.

One of the best features of SmartVault, an online document storage and secure file sharing solution, is the integration it offers with QuickBooks financial software. Using SmartVault and QuickBooks together, business owners and the bookkeepers and accountants who support them are able to easily and efficiently manage source accounting documents, connect them to transactions in the accounting system, and retrieve them at any later date required. The process of connecting the source document to the transaction in QuickBooks is the easiest thing to do, too, because you simply use the familiar paperclip to hook the two items together which ultimately deliver an integrated QuickBooks document management solution.

When working in QuickBooks, the SmartVault toolbar is visible on the screen. Operators who need to make entries in the financial system are able to attach source documents right to the transaction using the SmartVault,toolbar – the user simply clicks on the paperclip icon on the toolbar to scan, browse or drag and drop files onto the toolbar and into SmartVault. The source document is now attached to that specific QuickBooks transaction – later, when a user views the QuickBooks entry, clicking on the folder icon on the toolbar will display the attached document, providing instant access to the supporting documentation for the entry and a built-in audit trail. Users can even scan documents as they make the QuickBooks entries, because SmartVault can grab the image from vault folders or directly from the SmartVault Inbox. This gives users scan to cloud functionality and makes scanning, naming and saving documents much easier, and eliminates the need for the user to have computer skills required for storing, organizing, and finding documents on their PC before they can be put into SmartVault.

Considering the volume and variety of paper documents that most businesses deal with, having a simple and fool-proof means to keep important financial documents available is critical. Even more, having those source accounting documents readily available and viewable right from the accounting software becomes an essential element to making sure you have the right information, and the back up to support it, in your accounting and bookkeeping systems.

Make Sense?

December 17, 2012August 9, 2013

Scan to the Cloud – Point A to Point B with no stops

There is a lot of talk today about the benefits of running a “paperless office”, and the number and variety of solutions currently available prove that the concept is a popular one. Paperless offices consume fewer resources in terms of consumables like paper and ink, and require less floor space for handling and storing paper files, saving on office costs and storage space. Paperless offices also make it easier for people to share information, and to control that information so that multiple versions or editions of documents don’t get distributed in error. Paperless office solutions make storing and sharing documents easier and, in many cases, more secure.

Online document management and electronic file storage approaches come in a wide variety of forms, but the consistent requirement for all of them is that the document – the paper file to be stored – first be turned into electronic data. Users familiar with this process understand that it means taking the paper document and scanning it to an electronic image file. You simply place the paper document in the scanner, direct the scanner to scan the document, and then save the file to your hard drive. Then, once the file is saved as an image file on the hard drive, you upload it to your “paperless” storage solution. It sounds like a simple process, but for people with limited PC resources or who are “technically challenged”, it is not at all a simple or straightforward requirement.

What isn’t straightforward is the need for the user to name, save, and then try to find the file on their PC before it can be uploaded to the cloud storage vault. Paperless solutions are supposed to be intuitive, yet it isn’t very intuitive to require a user to store files on their PC before they can use their cloud solution. PC hard drives get filled up, files get old and need to be deleted when no longer needed, and finding one particular file on a stuffed full hard drive can be time-consuming and frustrating. Further, the entire concept of the paperless office and a central filing area is that documents don’t get reproduced and distributed, yet the requirement to save image files to the PC first essentially guarantees that extra copies of files will be left sitting around on PC hard drives even after they are copied to the storage vault.

The better answer is the SmartVault answer, which gives you the ability to scan directly to the cloud from your local scanner. SmartVault is an online document storage and secure file sharing solution that gives users a way to go directly from point A to point B – from paper to stored image – with no stops in between. SmartVault does this with the SmartVault Inbox, which you can think of as an electronic inbox with the same functionality as the old inboxes that used to sit on desks. The Inbox is part of the little SmartVault desktop client which installs on the user PC and delivers the ability to scan directly to the cloud. The SmartVault Inbox makes it easier to get files into the document vault because users can simply drop the document in the scanner, and in one click, the file is scanned directly into SmartVault. The file is auto-named with information from the document for easy searchability – you can even rename the file if you need to, but not having to come up with file names just makes using the solution that much easier to use.

The file is not stored on the local PC, eliminating the requirement to perform regular file cleanups, and now that the file is in SmartVault, you have a secure offsite backup of that document.

So whether a document needs to be uploaded and attached to a QuickBooks financial transaction or just needs to be archived for future use, SmartVault handles the process with just one click. When multiple files or documents need to be processed, that “one click” method saves a lot of time and user frustration.

Paperless office solutions should save steps in the process, not add more of them. SmartVault’s unique approach of allowing users to scan directly to the cloud saves time and frustration, and helps even novice technology users function like seasoned IT savvy professionals.

Make Sense?

September 21, 2012October 28, 2014

Smarter Online Document Vaults: Document Management for QuickBooks, Microsoft Office and more

Smarter Online Document Vaults

Document Management for QuickBooks, Microsoft Office and more

Document management used to be just about storing and retrieving files. Being able to easily store document images and other files, and then quickly finding them when you need them, is an important aspect of business record keeping. If you are an accounting or bookkeeping professional offering outsourced services to clients, having a secure way to store and manage client document files from a variety of sources is key to developing workflows and standardizing service delivery. Invoices, bills, bank statements, and all the other paperwork which is generated by various business processes must be captured, accounted for, and retained for future reference and documentation support. With all of this going on, having a secure and easy way to handle all that paper and computer-generated reporting is really important.

Using an electronic document management system isn’t really that much different from dealing with paper filing systems, at least in terms of the process. You obtain the document, you translate it into a journal entry or transaction, and then you file the document away for later use. The difference is simply that the document becomes digital image data and is stored electronically, instead of keeping the paper file around. And, the earlier in the process where you can turn paper documents into digital images, the better, because it reduces the need for “paper-based” processes which take more time and resources, and which may introduce risk of information loss or damage.

In an outsourced bookkeeping arrangement, for example, allowing the client to convert paper to image files is highly desirable as it prevents the outsourcer from having to travel to client offices to obtain paperwork, and reduces the time involved either with traveling to and from client locations or time spent waiting for mailed information to arrive. For the client to handle this process willingly, or with any frequency, tools which are simple to understand and use must be supplied. Scanning a document, saving it to the hard drive, and then trying to find the file to upload later to an accountant “portal” is not a simple process and it is not efficient. If the user is somewhat nontechnical (most business owners?), or if there is a lot of paperwork to scan and upload, that multi-step process just won’t work for the client.

SmartVault, a solution for QuickBooks-connected and general purpose document management, has an elegant solution to the problem, and it’s called the “InBox”. Just like the inbox on your desk, the SmartVault InBox is where new documents arrive to be processed. The ingenious part is that the InBox is a little applet that gets installed on the client workstation, and provides them with a very simple way to scan files directly to SmartVault. The accountant or bookkeeper then accesses the client files from the inbox and processes and/or attaches them to QuickBooks transactions as required. The client has only to perform the simple task of telling the SmartVault InBox app to obtain documents fed into the scanner. No local file saving and retrieval required. For the accountant or bookkeeper, the inbox is the first stop in the workflow, and is the place they go to obtain whatever information the client has provided. The SmartVault InBox can also be used to return files easily and securely to clients, bypassing the need to have the client access and log in to a website in order to get the files (but a website portal is also part of the system, just in case the client prefers this method). If providing seamless service and easy to follow procedures describes how you work with your clients, then SmartVault could become a key element in your service delivery.

Affordability and ease of use are important factors to consider when looking for document management solutions for small businesses. In addition, having the ability to store documents from popular small business applications allows users to centrally store and manage all their business documents and files, not just those related to accounting. When users wear many “hats” in the business, and need access to a variety of document types, a centralized filing system is an absolute necessity. SmartVault addresses this by providing direct integration with Microsoft Outlook, Results CRM, and a variety of other popular small business solutions.

Oriented for use by small businesses and the accountants and bookkeepers who serve them, SmartVault delivers a surprisingly powerful solution which addresses the variety of document storage, attachment and retrieval requirements of most businesses, coupled with the workflow tools and a unique QuickBooks integration capability to specifically address the needs of accounting and finance department users. You know you need to work smarter and not harder, so your document vault should be smarter, too.

Make Sense?