Tag Archives: document management

Harsh Reviews for One Popular Paperless Office Solution

Posted on December 7, 2009 by in Software

I try my best to keep up to date on the popular paperless office solutions on the market, particularly on those that are popular in the independent financial services industry. Every once in a while I run across reviews of solutions that are polar opposites of one another.

Here’s one recent example.

December’s Financial Advisor magazine features a write-up of PaperPort Professional v12.0, reviewed by Joel Bruckenstein. In the review he says:

…its ease of use, low cost and robust features make it an attractive option for smaller advisory firms with limited technology and training budgets.

and…

For the price, PaperPort provides a great deal of functionality.

Sounds fairly promising. For $199, advisers can get an entry-level document management and scanning solution that provides some of the basic functionality needed to implement a paperless office. What’s not to like?

Read More…

One Adviser’s Battle Against Inefficient Workflow

Posted on September 29, 2009 by in Efficiency

With increased workload and compressed margins of the last 12 months, financial advisers are looking for ways to maintain excellent client service while streamlining internal processes. One popular area for efficiency gains is the management of internal workflow.

I want to share an article published on IATechForum that highlights Laserfiche’s Avante product. Joseph Salpietro, President and CEO of Xpyria Investment Advisors (why the website domain is yannico.com is beyond me), shares his experience integrating the product into existing firm functions.

While the article features only the Avante solution (Laserfiche is one of the primary forum members), pay attention to the concepts of how the software was used to eliminate paper-pushing in the firm’s processes.

Click here to read Making Work Flow on IATechForum.

Is Scanning to PDF Files Less Secure than TIFFs?

Posted on May 15, 2009 by in Practice Management

pdfI recently received my May issue of Financial Advisor magazine and read David Lawrence’s article on document management titled Worth the Investment (click here to view online). This article describes the benefits of implementing an effective and easy-to-use document management system, a.k.a. electronic content management (ECM) system.

In the article, though, Mr. Lawrence said one thing that grabbed my attention. He wrote (my emphasis added):

A common mistake made by some firms is to use a system that saves documents in a PDF instead of a more secure format such as a TIFF. This means documents can be altered after the fact, and the firm risks potentially violating federal regulations. While some scanner manufacturers have addressed this issue with post-imprint symbols and other coding mechanisms to ensure authenticity, there are still lingering doubts about the security of the original documents.

Now hold on for one minute. TIFF files are “more secure” than PDF files?!?

Read More…