Secure Document Exchange

At this time of year, practitioners exchange documents with clients on a daily basis.  It is vital to keep such document exchanges secure, since most of these documents include very sensitive information.

Text messages or an email attachment that is not encrypted with a password is extremely vulnerable to interception by identity thieves.  Since many clients do not think about the need for such encryption or may not have the capability to create such encryption, it is vital for practitioners to offer a secure and simple method for their clients to send sensitive items, such as driver license images and other documents that contain Social Security numbers and similar information.

Practitioners can provide a secure portal to allow clients to upload and send scans or pictures of sensitive tax information and documents.  The secure portal uses encryption to protect files that are uploaded to and downloaded from it.

Secure portals are often available as part of the purchase of annual tax software.  For example, Intuit offers a secure portal as part of the purchase of the ProSeries and Lacerte packages.

If a practitioner does not have a secure portal available as part of the purchase of tax software, there are stand-alone secure portal providers, such as CCH Axcess Portal and Secure File Pro.