Streamline Your Document Collection & Management Process
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Your Challenge:
Dealing with the Unpleasant Processes of Document Collection & Management Associated with Client Engagements
Our Solution: Request List Management (RLM)
In preparation for audits, tax return preparations, loan applications, estate and exit planning, the process of putting together the required provided by client (PBC) documents often turns out to be messy and time-consuming.
In addition to an extremely tedious document collection process, a significant amount of time is lost due to inefficient communication between professionals and their clients.
Our Request List Management solution helps you streamline and automate the management of this frequently arduous procedure.
In short, RLM helps you focus your talents as a professional where you deliver value, not on the document collection effort.
Vault Rooms provides a service for businesses to safely share business-critical documents on the V-Rooms® platform which includes layers of bank-level security and has helped to innovate the virtual data room industry. Vault Rooms has flourished into a market leading virtual data room provider dedicated to offering innovative solutions to meet the needs of its clients.
Request List Management is just one of the many tools we offer to simplify and organize your business processes.
News headlines for the past several years
have detailed the arrests of email scammers and wire fraud cyber
criminals. One of the most well-known
and oldest email scams was the “Nigerian prince” email scam. Despite its
infamy and longevity, these types of email scams appears no less potent.
So why, after more than ten years, do people
still fall for requests for personal information or money from unknown and
unverifiable people, often written in prose filled with mistakes and typos?
Email Inbox Electronic Communication Graphics Concept
The Importance of Red Flags
For most people, emails containing any red flags (such as an unknown
sender, requests for funds or personally identifiable information, a fantastic
emotional appeal, non-idiomatic English) are either an automatic or manual
rerouted to the spam folder. These people are well-protected, and safe from
most threats.
However, there are some people, or at least enough to make the scheme
profitable, for whom these red flags are not identified as such. And most of
these people fall victim to social engineering.
What Is Social Engineering?
According to Social Engineer, Inc., a research-oriented security
organization, social engineering is “a blend of science, psychology, and art,”
paradoxically both simple and complex, and more specifically, “any act that
influences a person to take an action that may or may not be in their best
interest.”
The Nigerian prince email scam has a very compelling blend of science,
psychology, and art that is strikingly both simple and complex. The emails are
often variations of the same narrative theme: due to an injustice, a prince has
lost his fortune and needs help recovering it. If some just and caring person
will give him full bank account information now, he will reward the individual
with 20% of the fortune.
The science or technology of email and wire transfer allows the scammer
to quickly, easily, and relatively anonymously receive money. The
psychological aspect of the operation, the promise of easy money and plea for
help, appeals to the victim’s desire for money and willingness to help.
The art here is one of manipulation and deception.
Keep An Eye Out For Red Flags
The red flag is waving furiously, so don’t miss it. Don’t open
emails from suspicious senders with questionable subjects. Don’t wire
money to someone you don’t know. Don’t click on links in emails that appear to
come from people you do know if the situation seems unfamiliar. Pick up the phone and talk to the person
first.
Choose Vault Rooms
If you’re looking to prevent your business-critical documents from ending up in the wrong hands, use one of our Virtual Data Rooms to securely share your sensitive information with multiple parties.
Almost any service-based company you come
across boasts about their customer service as being entirely dedicated to
providing you an amazing experience. But as we know all too well, this is
rarely the case.
What are some of the qualities that make one
provider’s customer service superior to the rest? Listed below are some
qualities that one might look for in determining a service provider that can
work flexibly to support your organization’s needs.
Around-the-Clock Customer
Service
It’s important to make sure your provider is
available at all times of the day, even when it seems unlikely you’ll ever need
to call them at the crack of dawn. Sometimes, hours run late, deadlines are
pushed, and the workplace becomes a temporary homestead for weeks at a time. On
these occasions, having access to 24/7 customer service can mitigate the risk
of running across errors and losing the potential productivity of hours at a
time.
Low Response Time
Even if you know that your service provider
is available 24/7 for support needs, you need to look for their average
response time and see how soon, or how long, it takes for user needs to be
addressed. Around-the-clock service doesn’t mean much when it takes hours at a
time for a single question to be answered. What makes a good service provider
is the combination of 24/7 service with a low response time.
No Transfer Calls
We’ve all experienced the dreaded customer
service transfer cycle when we set out to call one number only to wait 30
minutes and be forwarded to another number. Good customer service sets out to
address your needs here and now. This means no information outsourcing, no
in-house confusion, and no waiting in a handful of queues to have your problems
solved.
Detailed Documentation
So you’ve found a service provider that is
able to work with your schedule, respond quickly, and get the job done without
hassle. Now it’s important to check for the provision of documentation, such as
videos, tutorials, and FAQs. There’s not just one correct way to address the
needs of a customer, and successful customer service programs will outline the
majority of client needs in an easily accessible format online.
You can see that there’s a level of depth in
choosing a superior customer service experience. Each of these components work
together, and it would be altogether detrimental to the system if one were
missing.
World Class Security and
Customer Service
At Vault Rooms, we not only provide state-of-the-art virtual data rooms that help our clients keep their business-critical files safe, but we also provide the finest in customer support with around-the-clock customer care specialists trained to engage with thousands of clients.
Looking to learn more about how our virtual data rooms can help you improve your document collection and organization efficiencies? Get started here: www.vaultrooms.com.
It’s a fundamental truth that two brains work better than one, especially when it comes to task workflow and collaboration, where milestones and goals are set and need to be completed in a timely and efficient manner. This definitely applies to M&A and fundraising transactions, financial audits, tax preparation and loan processing where many such tasks inherently require the participation of two or more parties.
So here’s the million dollar question: How can technology leverage the needs of multiple party collaboration in providing a thorough yet cohesive workflow and task management solution?
Issues with Traditional
Collaboration
If you’re trying to complete an acquisition, not only are you working
internally with colleagues, you’re also working with lawyers, accountants, and
other 3rd parties. Files are often shared containing
input forms for various pieces of information. And with multiple users emailing
back and forth, it’s easy for various versions of this form to get lost in the
barrage of communication.
The definitive way to fix this problem is to provide a collaboration
service that allows for a singular, consistent copy of files to become
accessible for all relevant users. This ensures that no one needs to worry
about being up-to-date, providing redundant information or risking the security
of the provided content. It’s all available via a safe and secure web server.
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Task Collaboration and
Privacy
Task collaboration, with the entirety of its
benefits, can also raise a concern about privacy. If you’re emailing all of
your information, how can you be sure that unwanted guests aren’t gaining
critical access through a long list of malicious social engineering tactics?
Hosting online also allows for enhanced
security options (such as printing and downloading controls, audit logs, and
watermark options) that cannot be found within consumer-focused cloud storage
platforms or email correspondence.
For firms that deal with multiple
transactions on a regular basis, it’s of paramount importance to ensure that
your proprietary information stays safe. A task collaboration platform can
guarantee that in ways that other, limited mediums cannot.
Security is a top priority for us at Vault Rooms and our focus is to provide our clients with state-of-the-art features that allow them to exercise complete control over their data room. With so many new and different ways to use virtual data rooms, our clients’ security needs have also become more varied. At Vault Rooms, we work with our clients to customize the features used to perfectly fit their security, collaboration and workflow requirements.
To learn more about our virtual data rooms, get started here: www.vaultrooms.com
If you deal with a large number of documents on a daily basis, it’s important to understand the document management options available to you. These tools can boost efficiency and allow your firm to operate with a mitigated security risk.
Advanced
Search
Enhanced
search options allow you to view and organize documents by keyword, upload
data, metadata, and other criteria. Searching for these documents can yield
results in a matter of seconds. If you have a meeting lined up with a serious
prospect, one search will provide all relevant information in a clean format.
Proper document management ensures that your files are easy to locate,
retrieve, and receive.
Ease of
Access
One of the major pain points in using traditional document storage is the restrictions on how you can access your files. If all your files are stored on a single hard drive, you’re also exposing yourself to an increased risk that your data might get damaged or lost. By using a cloud-hosted document management service, you can access your important documents anytime, anywhere.
Document
Management Security
Document
management services also host a range of relevant security options. Dynamic
watermarking, audit logging, and print and download restrictions that serve as
safety measures against any external threat that might appear. These tools also
eliminate the potential for an internal threat: if a rogue user tries to
download a document, or has been viewing it for a suspicious period of time,
you will have the evidence to take action.
File Sharing
A cloud-based document management service also allows for freedom to collaborate. Users can share documents back and forth from any location. With detailed security options, administrators can set the rules and determine various access rights. And with the audit trail functionality, they get to know who has viewed or edited particular documents. This often proves to be a critical resource when maintaining liability in the transaction process.
For over a decade, Vault Rooms has been the SAFE, EASY-TO-USE and AFFORDABLE virtual data room provider of choice for investment bankers, accountants, private equity firms, M&A advisors, and many more!
We provide
bank-level security with simplicity of use that allows you to take the hassle
out of document management.
To learn more about our virtual data rooms, get started here: www.vaultrooms.com.
As popular news suggests, information leaks
could easily lead to the compromise of extremely valuable data that was not
meant to be viewed publicly.
Preventing this is a matter of paramount
importance for any firm, regardless of its shape and size. It’s always
important to be extra cautious when you’re exchanging business-critical documents
and other files containing sensitive information with multiples parties.
One of the biggest user oversights in cybersecurity is the trust people place in large-scale email service providers to stay secure at all times. While many people rightfully trust email providers to deliver their emails at fast speeds, the same reliability cannot be spoken for as it relates to email security.
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An Alternative to Email
For firms that need to circulate highly-sensitive
information between multiple parties, virtual data rooms are a wise solution. The
multitude of highly-customizable security settings and document management
features that these virtual ‘fortresses’ provide make them much more immune to cyber
threats.
Mitigating the Risk of Information Leaks
Every company has confidential information
being transmitted and shared in one form or another. This information ranges
from financial, HR and payroll records, customer lists, price lists, to
transaction documents and highly-sensitive intellectual property.
Virtual data rooms can prevent the interception of these valuable documents, as well as restrict end-users from sharing the information with others. For firms that value a secure and collaborative environment, Virtual Data Rooms (or VDRs) are crucial in optimizing efficiency and mitigating risk.
Data rooms alleviate the email security risks
of transferring sensitive information, keeping it out of the hands of unwanted
recipients. Data rooms are being used as a replacement to risky email
transmissions in many fields and industries, including M&A, real estate,
wealth management, board communications, and venture capital transactions.
Looking for a virtual data room to keep your business-critical files safe? We at Vault Rooms are here to help you find a solution that perfectly fits your needs.
In a brilliant article titled ‘10 skills for digital leadership’, Daniel Hood, the editor-in-chief of Accounting Today, emphasized that “Leadership is the common denominator of the [accounting] firms that have great technology and [is] the single most important differentiator between the leading firms and the rest of the pack.” Effective leadership skills have always played an essential role in the success of some of the top accounting firms. The philosophy of successful leadership, when boiled down to its very essence, is about making decisions that position a firm for success; and one decision which often plays a crucial role in the success of tops firms is the choice of a trusted virtual data room provider.
Choosing the right Virtual Data Room (VDR) enables you to boost the productivity of your firm, increase the speed and quality of your communications, improve the client experience, while also ensuring the overall safety of your business-critical documents. In short, VDRs play a significant role in the success of some of the top accounting firms because they firmly reinforce at least 5 of the 10 key digital leadership skills: Communication, Simplification, Innovation, Technical Leadership, and Vision. All of these are mentioned by Daniel Hood in his article.
So let’s take a closer
look at how virtual data rooms help accounting firms in establishing their
digital leadership.
Ensuring Effective
Communication: Request List Management
As Daniel Hood emphasized in his article, maintaining efficient communication channels is one of the biggest challenges faced by all firms. IT leaders have come to the natural conclusion that email is NOT the solution. The reason for this? Huge amounts of lost time in unproductive email conversations. A statistic from Gartner recently declared that professionals spend as much as 50% of their time searching for and gathering documents. What’s even more disturbing is the fact that a major part of this time loss consists of repetitive conversations involving the circulation and location of important documents. So, is there a solution to this problem? The simple answer is YES, Request List Management.
Request List Management (RLM) is a set of features provided by Vault Rooms along with virtual data rooms which allow a firm to significantly improve the quality and the efficacy of a firm’s communication with its clients. The following is a list of the key benefits provided by RLM:
Improves document collection efficiency
Reduces a lot of the back and forth
Centralizes communication
Helps get rid of ALL email related issues (ex: documents getting lost in spam folders, document sizes being too big, repetitive emails for the same thing, having a weak email password which exposes the firm to additional threats…)
Simplifying
Communication
Another important and
often overlooked aspect of digital leadership involves getting rid of systems
and processes that do not support the final outcome – the success of the firm.
The task of automating and replacing processes that add little or no value is
quite similar to how the dead wood is burnt in a forest fire – it’s a great way
of clearing out the clutter and restoring the productivity of your firm. This
is another huge benefit that Request List Management (RLM) brings to the table – it centralizes and
simplifies communication by automating the collection of documents and helps to
clean out the clutter of inefficient communication processes.
Embracing Disruption
& Innovation
Companies are often at
their strongest when their IT leaders have the liberty to take advantage of the
latest technologies that disrupt traditional systems and processes. To an IT
leader, choosing a virtual data room is all about moving away from the traditional
ways of communication and document management towards an innovative platform
that disrupts and streamlines the collection, organization, sharing and
tracking of business-critical documents.
Technical Leadership
As Daniel Hood mentioned in his article, leaders in an organization do not “always have to know how to build the watch,” but with a Vault Room, that’s not a problem. When it comes to VDRs, the ease-of-use along with the access to technical skills means that leaders do not need advanced technical knowledge to effectively manage and monitor their business-critical documents. Time wasted in catching up and learning new technologies is eliminated. In essence, choosing the right virtual data room is about allowing leaders to do what they do best – lead.
Vision
Finally, as Daniel Hood
said, “it is difficult, if not impossible, to succeed with a defined vision,
strategic plan, and an IT strategy to support the vision and plan.” Successful
accounting firms are choosing to use virtual data rooms as part of their
long-term IT Strategy. Not only do VDRs allow these top firms to eliminate
document and collection inefficiencies while also securing their
business-critical documents, but they also serve as an important foundational
component to support their vision and their success.
Choose Vault Rooms
For over a decade, Vault
Rooms has been the SAFE, EASY-TO-USE and AFFORDABLE virtual data room provider
of choice for accountants, investment bankers, private equity firms, M&A
advisors, and many more! We specialize in providing bank-level security with
the simplicity of use that allows you to take the hassle out of document
collection and management.
To learn more about our virtual data rooms, get started here: www.vaultrooms.com
Passwords can be cracked. It’s pretty much every month nowadays that we hear about a new large-scale data breach, the leaking of personal content, or the hacking of major company’s servers. What’s really surprising is that many of these infiltrations could have been entirely avoided by these ‘victims of attack’ if they had taken a few specific steps to generate unique and secure passwords.
According to a 2015 report by technology journalist Carly Okyle, 90% of employee passwords are crack-able within 6 hours. That’s right, 90%.
Why is this happening? Well, one of the biggest reasons is that 65% of people use the same password for all of their web accounts.
It might sound inconsequential at times, but such lack of foresight often comes with a hefty price. It typically costs $200,000 on average for a small business to fix issues post-breach. And this figure has gone up to an astounding $170M for a single company looking to recover from a large data breach.
Where Users Go Wrong
When you look at how many of the passwords are stored, it’s not too surprising to understand why these passwords are exposed. 47% of users surveyed by Okyle maintain a spreadsheet to store passwords. 32% rely on memory, 31% use another form of electronic storage, and 27% write their password on paper.
Taking into account the number of casualties caused by these simple lapses of judgement, don’t you think it’s important to understand what constitutes a strong password policy?
Creating a Strong Password
A strong password policy includes the following:
At least 8 characters
Should not contain personal information
Must be unique from previously used passwords
Should not contain any word spelled completely
One special character
One number
One upper case letter
While this policy will go a long way in ensuring that your password is secure, it’s important to note that nothing is ever impenetrable. Hackers use brute force tools that are trained to make acute password guesses based on common patterns and characters.
Leverage Multiple Security Factors
It’s important to combine the usefulness of a strong password with other security enhancements to maximize the confidentiality of your information. Other safety measures include the use of bio-metrics, two-factor authentication requiring a security question and answer or an authentication text or app code, and the ability to restrict excessive login attempts.
Security is a top priority for us at Vault Rooms and our focus is to provide our clients with state-of-the-art features that allow them to exercise complete control over their data room. With virtual data rooms being used in so many different and new ways, our clients’ security needs have also become more varied. We offer password management features within each account that allow an admin to establish password policies for optimal security protection. Whatever your security needs are, at Vault Rooms, we have a customized solution that perfectly fits your requirements.
To learn more about our virtual data rooms, get started here: www.vaultrooms.com.
