No other profession generates as many documents, files and paperwork as demanded by accountants. A typical accountant’s office finds large volume of data passing through their desk and more so at the peak season of tax time. During this time, there is a lot of disorganization, and the situation often turns chaotic.

Clients (individuals or companies) have massive amount of files to be processed by the accountants. Accountants also need to arrange for proper paper archival and storage methods in order to ensure that the documents survive damage due to humidity, hot or cold weather.

Due to disorganization, there is also a high probability of errors and sensitive information falling into the wrong hands. Data breaches need to be prevented by the accountant’s office because you have the sole responsibility of maintaining the privacy of your client data.

Clearly, document digitization is the answer to all the above worries. Converting documents into electronic form through scanning, ensures complete peace of mind in all your accounting work. As an example, when on official trips, your clients can scan or take pictures of food and lodging receipts/invoices and store them on their computer or phone. Later, send them to you over email for processing.

It becomes convenient for the accountants to process digitized documents. You can use many cloud based storage services to store these digital documents. It saves your money as well as reduces the time spent for manual document storage and management.

• A few early adopters and small business accountants use their office scanners for digitizing client documents. This is a laborious task that does not scale with the growth of your accounting business.
• Many accountancy firms use 3rd party document processing vendors who specialize in scanning and digitization of paper documents to digital scans. Such services are apt for bigger accountant firms that process millions of pages each week.
• Some accountants recommend their clients to use 3rd party scanner apps like CamScanner, Abby FineScanner or TurboScan and share the documents over 3rd party file sharing services like Dropbox, Google Drive or Microsoft Onedrive.

The third option above feels a lot like a temporary solution because you are using two 3rd party tools in order to make your business work. It also erodes the trust put on your business by the clients. Cliffex has good experience building solutions for accountants that can help you with digitizing documents while preserving your brand.

What All Is Possible with Our Document Scanner and Uploading App?

Here is a list of things possible with a document scanning and uploading app:

Upload Documents from Android/iOS Devices

Your clients can upload documents from the Android/iOS app to the cloud in a secure manner. Once uploaded, you will get these files over cloud storage or email. You can also assign your assistants or other staff members to receive these emails and tag/file them appropriately.

Upload from Gallery or Scan from Phone’s Camera

Create high-quality scans from the phone’s camera – with one tap. You can scan documents of any kind – accounting sheets, invoices, receipts, purchase orders, contracts etc. Preview the scan and upload when you are ready.

Optimize File Size for Quicker Uploads

Our app comes with file optimization techniques that help in automatically selecting the best file size. It ensures quicker uploads while preserving image quality of the scanned image. We perform various image cleaning tasks such as edge enhancements on scanned images.

Handle File Upload Failures

It is for handling the errors related to uploading due to reasons such as No Network or Phone Crashes or Battery issues. The app efficiently handles these errors by resuming document uploads on its own.

Merge Multiple Scans into Single PDF

If your clients have separately scanned images of the pages of a document, they can merge those multiple page images into a single streamlined PDF file easily.

Client Registration and Approval Process

Client registration is highly customizable on this app. You can keep the registration process open so that anyone can register and use your app. You can also place an approval process for approving or rejecting the clients who register to your app.

Managing your Customers

We can integrate with your existing Customer relationship management system or we can provide a small CRM that holds records of all clients who register on the app. Client profile page can contain details such as name, email, type, and other information.

Integrated Document Management System

Enables to store, sync, organize and manage all your documents. It allows collaborating with your team, even when they are not in the office. Act as an admin and monitor the activities performed by your organization.

My Uploads Section

My uploads section in the app stores the history of all files uploaded by the client so that they can quickly track the history of uploaded documents with this section.

Our Solution

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Cliffex is a mobile app design & development studio that provides its customers with technology services to improve their business processes. SeaMount Tax & Accounting Services approached us to enable a better document workflow that allows their clients to send document scans for processing. We created SeaMount document scan and upload app for iOS and Android to help in this regard.

It has a login section for client registration. The profile section contains details about the client. Client can upload various types of files such as videos, documents, and images stored on their phone. Client can also take pictures using phone camera and send the document scans to SeaMount for processing.

To help promote the brand, SeaMounts’ own website and newsletter section is also promoted on this app. Read more about our work with SeaMount in the case study.

Conclusion

If you are an accountant who is looking to leverage the benefits of document digitization, we can help. Our document scanning and uploading apps allow you to improve your business and provide a better service to your clients.