There was a time when people used to keep important personal and financial documents in a shoebox under their beds. Times have changed, and now we have highly secured document storage devices available to manage our financial records.
However, there is a big downside to offline physical document storage.
Financial documents are susceptible, and their security is essential. When you have physical or offline documents, even if you store them in a fireproof safe, there is always a risk of theft, not to mention significant disasters like storms. Furthermore, you can only sometimes access these documents if they are stored in a different location if you require them urgently; neither can you share or collaborate with physical copies.
Online document storage services offer solutions for all these challenges, but you should still know how to manage your financial documents online securely.
Use a quality cloud service
The cloud has become one of the most common ways people and businesses store and share financial documents. While convenience is an advantage, there are still security issues that you must be aware of.
First, all the financial documents you store online should be password protected. Encrypt the files carefully before you upload them to any cloud document storage services. The easiest way to ensure your documents are secured is to create zip files and encrypt them with a password. Even better if you choose “Thames Security Shredding“for document storage services that offer encryption for additional security.
Share financial documents securely
Sharing financial documents internally or externally is a common requirement for most businesses. As these files contain sensitive material, you must ensure that these documents are securely shared. Most people think simply placing a password on the files is enough, but that’s not true.
You must also ensure security when you share your password with the recipient. Several document storage services, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and Off the Record (OTR), offer fully secured document sharing. Dropbox and Google Drive are the best options for sharing large financial documents. You can easily protect the documents and create a sharing link. People with access to the link will be able to access the documents.
Create a safe document management system
Your business will produce, store, and manage all financial documents. To address these documents securely, you must have a system in place. It will be a waste of time and money if your staff has to spend a lot of time looking for documents. This is why a safe document management system is essential to make it easier for anyone to locate a digital document when required.
Always backup
When you store financial documents online, you must back up important documents. The same goes for physical documents that must be scanned and stored on a hard drive. Online document storage services are highly secured, but there is always a chance of cyber attacks or technical glitches. You would not want to lose your important financial documents, so you must always create a password-protected backup.
You must create a backup of all essential documents on a hard drive or through a remote backup service. The backup will ensure that you always have a spare copy of critical financial documents available in case of data corruption, deletion, or theft.
Conclusion
Online financial document storage is a requirement for businesses today and is much more secure than physical document storage. However, there are challenges to managing financial documents online, so we created this guide. We hope now you understand how to keep your financial records secured and unencrypted and store or share them online.
