Author Archive

Re-thinking your work practices

Thursday, December 20th, 2018

The start of a new year is always good time to re-assess and test your business processes and practices. Are they fit for purpose? Do they do everything you need them to? Are they secure? Do they cover your business in terms of compliance? Are they easy to use? Is there a regular, onerous task that could be improved?

One of the main reasons people switch to docSAFE is for the layers and layers of security. We are constantly adding state of the art and innovative solutions that will protect your data, keep your client and staff information safe and make sure hackers can’t get in to your systems. We are increasingly seeing hackers targeting all kinds of smaller business – not just the household names. They can find a way to access your most important and sensitive information, including your personal data and finances.

It is more important than ever that you take steps to prevent this – for you, your staff and your clients. Our exhaustive approach to security formed part of our recent ISO 27001 accreditation.

Signing online is a game-changer. You can speed up so many operations by asking your clients to sign online and it’s perfectly legal. docSAFE offers a full audit trail and it also automatically reminds your clients to sign anything they’ve overlooked. You can also see, at a glance, which documents are outstanding.

Signing online saves valuable time and allows you to organise face-to-face meetings for when things really matter. There’s no substitute for getting together with a client but we just believe signing documents isn’t one of them!

Working in the cloud, storing your information remotely so you can access it anywhere, anytime, has proved incredibly popular since we launched docSAFE many years ago. Not only can you get to any file but you can collaborate, share, back up and give select access to documents as you require.

Keeping your documents in the cloud is an intelligent way to store everything too. If you have problems with your computer hardware and your data is stored remotely, you can just access it from another device.

Sometimes we can’t see how a new way of doing things so it’s worth investigating options, viewing demos, attending events and talking to other people in your sector to see what they use and how it benefits them. You can also ask us for more information.

Why ISO is right for us

Wednesday, August 8th, 2018

docSAFE is now ISO27001 accredited and – as the proud family – we are very pleased.

The whole point of an external body looking at what you do and how you do it is a huge sanity check. You can get caught up in your own bubble, especially if you create a product or service that is successful in a particular sector – for us it’s professionals (accountants, solicitors, financial services and some education). You focus on the product and how you develop it, keeping ahead of trends and requirements, motivated largely by client requests and needs.

To have a completely independent organisation with the authority and standards of ISO go through your processes and systems and give it the green light is important to us. We worked together over a fairly long period of time, refining and enhancing until we had ticked every last box.

It’s not the ISO accreditation we are proud of, it’s the end result and our clients’ satisfaction. After all, that’s all that really matters. But it doesn’t hurt to get it checked and approved externally by an organisation who has no interest in your business – beyond helping it improve.

Client-driven improvements to docSAFE

Tuesday, July 24th, 2018

There is a great story about a brand new American university where the building was created from scratch according to detailed architectural plans. It was furnished and populated with a fresh intake of students. The interesting part of the tale is the fact that the architects intentionally left out the creation of any pathways. The whole campus was grassed and the pathways were created naturally by the students over the course of the first term. After the tracks in the grass had been worn away, so the pathways were built.

We really enjoy this analogy as it reflects our own culture. We have created a carefully planned secure hub in docSAFE – it ticks all the boxes and offers a highly functional system used by thousands of professional firms and their clients. However, we listen to clients to update, refine and improve docSAFE. We have also set up a brand new forum in the latest version of docSAFE for clients to feedback their thoughts and requests.

Our latest developments are as a direct result of client requests – enhanced messaging and more detailed permission levels. If you would like to know more about those and docSAFE in general, give us a call and we can set you up with a demo of docSAFE and talk you through its direct benefits. And we’ll listen carefully  to your thoughts too.

The move towards the smaller supplier

Tuesday, June 12th, 2018

Many things in life come full circle – flared trousers and vinyl records for example. Back in the day, before the supermarket giants landed, we enjoyed the attentions of our local shopkeeper who served us exactly what we needed with individual attention and knowledge of our buying habits and lifestyle. Just like the re-emerging popularity of these service-led traditions, we believe many business sectors will follow this pattern.

Certainly in IT and business systems, much of the market-share gained by the big brand names are as a result of the buy out of smaller, specialist-knowledge businesses. At Online Practice, we have been developing docSAFE, our flagship secure portal product, for decades: refining, improving and adding functionality. We have responded to the requests and enquiries from our professional UK client base to create a product that does what is needed, and more.

We are all at the mercy of some of the larger corporations, it is inevitable that we have to use their services – such is their market domination. But, where avoidable, we would always choose the smaller supplier with its attention to detail, where our custom counts for something, where our requests are considered and, often, actioned. In this day of recycled traditions, we firmly believe the smaller suppliers are about to have their day.

If you contact us, you’ll talk to a real person, often Mike, the MD and the team around him.

GDPR – what you need to know

Monday, May 21st, 2018

To alleviate some of the worry or concern that the media (and social media in particular) is stirring up around the subject of GDPR, we have found a great resource that outines everything you need to know in an easy to digest format. It is produced by the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) and gives you a link to the different applications for GDPR. So, if you are a GDPR controller, marketer, processor or even the person who looks after the CCTV records, there is a link and checklist to help you work towards compliancy.

CLICK HERE FOR ICO GDPR CHECKLISTS

There is a lot to know but the key points are that you must have processes and policies in place that serve your organisation’s contacts. You must keep data safe and under control. You need to specify whose responsibility this is. All of this must be accountable and auditable in the case of an investigation. We can help with this through the secure docSAFE framework – we ensure that there is never any reason for information to leave the portal. You invite clients to access, view, collaborate and work within the same platform, with documents never needing to leave – even when they are being signed electronically. What’s more, we provide a full audit trail for accountability and security.

This isn’t new to us – we created docSAFE long before GDPR was a twinkle in the government’s eye so we have been working in this way for many years – along with hundreds of our professional clients.

Take the next step, call us today
0121 794 0685