Over the next few weeks, we will host three webinars highlighting features specific to the accounting profession. Join us for an exciting overview of features of your ShareFile account including the client portal, Outlook Plug-in, Folder Templates, and various other tools. Tax season is right around the corner, and we want to make sure you are ready for it.

There are plenty of articles out there telling you to back up your data- but who really stops during the middle of their work day to back-up? I would guess a pretty small percentage. It’s a hassle, its low on the priority list, and keeps getting pushed to the back burner—until something catastrophic happens in the instance of lost data. Uh-oh. Should have backed up. According to a recent article posted in CPA Practice Advisor, “recreating lost data from scratch will cost you between $2,000 and $8,000 per megabyte. For a typical PC with only normal data on it, that can run to $20,000 or more.” Is it worth it?

Did you know that each day some 5,760 hard drives will crash? An easy way to avoid the nightmare of lost data is to improve your practice with SaaS. Such services allow businesses to go on about their daily routine without the worry of file transfer and storage. Services that offer a portal are quickly becoming popular due to the easy to use delivery tool for clients. Accountants can easily post electronic versions of past tax returns and other relevant data so clients can access the documents 24/7 without interrupting workflow. Because that’s the goal, right?

How many times per day do you have to remember your user name and password for a particular application? I just took a few minutes to recall my morning and I’ve already logged into six different applications- all of which, I have stored in my head. But there are so many times per day that I need to log in to do something quickly in a particular application and I cannot, for the life of me, remember the correct password for that particular application. Frustrating!

OneLogin is a useful tool for small businesses to unify access to SaaS apps. OneLogin eliminates user-managed passwords and ensures users only have to remember and enter one single password- for OneLogin or their corporate network. It’s simple- one click. This eliminates the need to remember different user names and passwords for various applications.

Being new to the ShareFile team, I was very interested in the reports ShareFile has to offer. One of the features that I have not heard a lot of customers talk about is reporting so I thought it would be a great topic to write about.

ShareFile has robust reporting that can help your business save time, manage usage, and even help with Sarbanes-Oxley compliancy.

Once logged in, click on “Admin” in top right navigation bar, then click on “Reporting” in right navigation. This will take you to your Account Reporting Dashboard. You can see a high level view of your users, clients, storage space, and bandwidth usage.

Under “Details” click “+Create Report”

Report Number 5 – Usage Report. Check employee or client activity. This is also a great customer service tool. You can check to see which clients have downloaded, or not downloaded, the file you sent. If it has been several days and the file has not been downloaded, you can contact them to see if they need assistance. It is a great reminder to download the file and your client will appreciate the attention to detail. Usage reports can also be helpful audit tools. Have you ever had a client say that they didn’t receive information that you thought that they had, or wanted to double-check when a team member last updated a file? The Usage Report gives you facts such as the exact time and IP address where an upload or download took place to help answer any questions that may come up as a natural result of collaboration.

Last night, our ShareFile Development team pushed a new update live allowing for multi-level administration within ShareFile accounts. Multi-level administration is a concept and feature set that is built for companies that want to delegate and/or separate administrative function for employee users. The previous setting of “Admin” included a tremendous amount of functionality that was not always desirable for all administrative type users. For example, some users may only need to access billing while others should only be able to see the information but not edit preferences.

When creating new employees or editing current employees, you will be given a list of administrative options that can be enabled or disabled for a particular user. This page can be seen below:

More information about these permissions and how to update administrative options for your employees can be found through our Knowledge Base here.

If there are any questions or issues, please contact your Account Manager or our Support staff.

It’s always appealing to see an industry leader value responsible growth over a quick sale, and that’s why we’ve noticed Google’s Chromebook marketing strategy. With Chromebook, Google seeks to progress computer use to an entirely web based experience. T here is no local software or file storage, as applications and files are instead hosted by Google and available when the user starts the laptop and signs in to their account. While it’s an interesting concept, Google recognizes that a completely web based system won’t be for everyone. CNET.com recently quoted Google’s vice president of Chrome, Sudar Pichai, about his idea for initial Chromebook users:

“Our goal, our main criterion, is I want really high user satisfaction amongst consumers, businesses, and schools, independent of our quantity. I want people who pick up and buy one to be very happy with their purchase Part of the reason it’s not in physical retail is our goal is not to push a lot of these. We want people to know what they’re buying. Online gives a check. In the physical world you might accidentally walk out with a Chromebook. I don’t want that to happen.”

Some of this strategy is based on Chromebook’s unique ability to evolve. If Chromebook is able to carve a niche in the market, it may be able to attract customers in the future who aren’t currently ready for a completely web based system, or who may be better able to utilize the Chrome OS based service once that it has had time to more fully develop. This should be a rapid process. While software updates must be downloaded and installed on other computers, because Chromebook uses only web based software, updates can be rolled out automatically, so new upgrades and features can be made available as soon as a user signs in.

Throughout the month, our Development team continuously releases updates to our application to allow for increased ease of use for our ShareFile users. This month, we have made a number of enhancements within our ShareFile application to help make it easier for Administrators to manage their accounts. These enhancements include a new folder invitation beta feature, an update to the “Remember Me” check box on the login screen and the ability to create new account settings, including the limitation of file versions, creation of case-sensitive passwords and the limitation of IP addresses.

With ShareFile’s new folder invitation feature, folder administrators will be able to send a link granting full folder access to as many email recipients as they would like without having to set the users up with folder access first. This feature is designed to make it easier for folder administrators to grant access to folders to a large group of users. These invitations will allow interested parties to sign up for gain access to folders within a ShareFile account. At the same time, we have also made updates to the “Remember Me” check box on the Login screen of a ShareFile account. Now, the check box reads “Keep me logged in,” as opposed to “Remember Me;” by selecting this option, the ShareFile account will save the email address and password of the user so that it will be automatically filled in whenever you login using the same browser on your computer. For any new accounts opened on the 16th of May or after, the box will read “Remember Me,” but this box will only save the user’s email address, and not their password. This update is designed to improve security within an account because the user must enter their ShareFile password each time they login.

Accounts created prior to the 16th of May can also have this setting updated by contacting our Support team at support@sharefile.com. Finally, this month, our Development teams made a number of new account settings available, including the ability to limit file versions, create case-sensitive passwords and limit IP addresses. In limiting file versions, administrators can change the number of copies of a file that will be saved as separate versions on a folder. Case-sensitive passwords can also be enforced on an account-wide basis and accounts may now also limit account activity to a given number of IP addresses. This allows accounts to limit file access and to discourage distribution to external users. To change both the password settings in your account or to limit the IP addresses accessing your account, please contact ShareFile Support at support@sharefile.com.

Our Account Services team was created in January, 2011 by Nick Woerner, who has been working with ShareFile since the spring of 2008. Nick saw an opportunity to raise the bar for service and developed Account Services to improve the availability and quality of training and ongoing, proactive support for ShareFile users.

Account Services representatives conduct daily training webinars and also one-on-one sessions for customers. The team has the opportunity to work with new our accounts and learn the reasons our customers chose ShareFile as a solution for their business. I recently asked two Account Services representatives, Alex Hofford and Amanda Rogers, about the features and benefits of a ShareFile account that are most helpful to people who are just getting started or looking to learn more. Below are some of the tips they shared.

What are the most common questions that you hear from new accounts?

Alex:
FAQ- One of the most common questions I get from clients is “What is my client going to be able to see when they log in?”

Answer- While the specific answer to this question will be different with each account, the fundamental answer lies within our Folder Access permissions. With these options, the account administrator can control not only which folders each client user can see in the system, but also any download/upload capability and email notifications. These options create a level of customization so that you and your clients can get the most appropriate use out of our system.

Amanda:
FAQ- “How is the transfer secure if we send out an email with a link to download a file? What if the email gets intercepted?”

Answer- I often get asked this question, especially when going over the ‘Require user to login’ option within ‘Send a File’. I point out that if the user isn’t already created as a user on the account, the system will assign them a password. I get a lot of concern over the password coming out in the same email as the link to the file. There are measures that the administrator(s) can put into place within their account to add additional security. Our first recommendation is to create the person as user in the system and then grant them access to a folder in the account that has the material you would be sending to them. If the user is created in this way, then they will be required to log-in each time before they can access the folder. They will be sent a temporary system-generated password in an initial email and will be prompted to change that password as soon as they log-in the first time. Email notifications can be turned on, so that notification will be provided as soon as new files have been uploaded to the folder.

I’ve also helped accounts with their email templates so that a new user’s password won’t go out in an email. Some accounts even change the passwords for all users to the last four digits of their SSN (for those in Accounting and Financial industries) and then only say in the welcome email that their password is the last four digits of their SSN. I also refer those who ask these questions to the Reporting feature in their account and let them know that they can trace downloads to an IP address and location to determine who is doing the downloading/uploading of a file.