Moore Stephens selects Virtual Cabinet Document Management System

The Background and Challenge

Moore Stephens is one of the world’s major accounting and consulting networks with 299 independent firms and 624 offices in 101 countries. Faced with the mounting challenge, due to legislation, of storing hundreds of lever arch files that could sit on shelves for up to ten years, Moore Stephens Stoke-on-Trent took the decision in 2012 to eradicate paper files and to implement the Virtual Cabinet electronic document management system.

"Installing Virtual Cabinet was an excellent decision as it enables us to achieve our aim of being paperless and removes the need for document files."

- Tracey Hammond, Office Manager, Moore Stephen

The Solution

Virtual Cabinet has allowed the firm to get rid of 99% of its filing cabinets, which has freed up so much space that eventually it will be possible to merge the two separate office units into one. “This is set to give us savings in relation to rent, utility bills etc.” says Tracey Hammond, Office Manager.

Moore Stephens has two distinct areas of operation with a compliance business and an insolvency arm. The nature of the insolvency business means that there can be hundreds of ongoing cases at any one time and the files associated with each case need to be readily accessible. Converting to electronic document management has proved extremely useful as searches for documents are now completed much quicker than looking through several paper files.

"The Virtual Cabinet implementation team picked up on the fact that the filing structure in the insolvency department is complicated and tailored it very much to us. We cannot now imagine being without it. Document flow is much quicker."

- Tracey Hammond, Office Manager, Moore Stephens

The firm is also finding that its off-site storage costs are reducing steadily. As boxes are returned from storage, where possible, the files are back scanned onto Virtual Cabinet and there is no need to return them.

A temporary member of staff was brought on for six months, to back scan and index each file, which was completed in full. “We now send very little to offsite storage,” Tracey adds.

"As an office we have fully embraced Virtual Cabinet."

- Tracey Hammond, Office Manager, Moore Stephens

Adopting a secure Client Portal

The next stage is to implement the Virtual Cabinet Document and Client Portal in the tax and audit departments to provide greater security and reduce the risk of claims from clients if their information falls into the wrong hands. Even though the firm encrypts client tax and payroll emails, all member firms in the network are aware that additional security measures are required.

Clients will be able to access and view documents published to them via the Portal and will be able to approve, change the status of, and respond to documents allowing digital/electronic signatures to provide a seamless end-to-end sign off process. 

"We see using the Virtual Cabinet Portal as risk management on a daily basis and it is essential that we do everything we can to protect client information."

- Tracey Hammond, Office Manager, Moore Stephens