Antrams Financial Services selects Virtual Cabinet Document Management Software

Use of a Client Portal guarantees complete security and traceability

Antrams Financial Services, (West Sussex office), have achieved what so many other professional firms dream of – a paperless environment in the truest sense of the word. Not one filing cabinet can be found lurking in the offices of this successful organisation with a long-standing reputation for high quality financial planning.

"Virtual Cabinet is an investment worth making in terms of both time and money."

- Mark Robinson, Financial Planner, Antrams

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Many firms dread having to move premises but when paper is not an issue, it can be easily achieved according to Mark Robinson, Financial Planner, Antrams. When the opportunity arose for Mark to join Antrams in 2013, he took the decision to take the electronic document management system, Virtual Cabinet, with him. “All files were literally moved on a two terabyte hard drive.” he says.

A long-standing advocate of the paperless office, Mark is passionate about how electronic document management increases security and provides much needed answers in the case of queries.

"The nature of the financial planning industry means that we have lots of files and it is essential that they are kept safe. Version control provides a further strategic advantage as it allows us access to detailed audit trails that show beyond the shadow of a doubt what has happened to any document should there be any queries."

- Mark Robinson, Financial Planner, Antrams

Virtual Cabinet’s integrated document portal provides the industry, which is bound by a duty of confidentiality, with the means of communicating securely with clients. Use of a portal guarantees complete security and traceability through a full audit trail and allows users to securely upload documents to the Cloud where clients can access and view documents published to them.

Right from the first demonstration of Virtual Cabinet, Mark was impressed. “It was clear that it was less clunky, more streamlined than the old legacy document management system it was replacing and it addressed the issues about storing documents in file trees that had been a recurrent problem. The thought process is more sensible and the front end looks and feels nicer. It is all together easier to use.”

Virtual Cabinet worked closely with the firm’s IT team to install and deliver a system that runs across two sites, with the server located remotely in the Brighton office. Virtual Cabinet integrates with the specialist online software, Intelligent Office, used by IFAs, financial and mortgage advisers.

"They were brilliant and there hasn’t been one problem since day one. It couldn’t have gone any better. It’s all perfect."

- Mark Robinson, Financial Planner, Antrams

This is not said lightly. Mark and his administrative team initially tested the system to its limits to ensure that all documents were being stored by Virtual Cabinet. After weeks spent running random checks, not one document was found to have gone missing. It was at this point that Mark says he realised that he “could trust this system.”

The administrators use the bar code separators in Virtual Cabinet and report that document recovery is easier. “When looking for a document, we only need to carry out primary searches and never need the secondary level.”

As a long-term user of document management, one of his key nuggets of advice is to take time to file the document properly. “Don’t just save it as a letter from a client. Add detail so if it’s to do with a withdrawal say so and details of which policy. Our strategy is to ensure the date is given, the name of the client and the policy number so we can find it easily.”

The time-savings from implementing technology and particularly Virtual Cabinet for document recovery, are persuasive. Mark estimates that the savings easily add up. “Anything that can save between four and five minutes every hour soon adds up and before you know it, you have saved a full eight hour day.”

"We would never go back to paper and have never looked back. Virtual Cabinet is an investment worth making in terms of both time and money."

- Mark Robinson, Financial Planner, Antrams

Virtual Cabinet is the preferred document management and cloud portal solution of professional firms including 27 of the top 100 UK accountancy practices and it combines industry strength document management with secure client communication and the electronic sign-off of documents.