sharing sensitive files – SIFTSORT: BLOG | PRESS

Siftsort.com Enterprise ‘Document Vault’ Platform Sees Steady User Growth

We’ve created a fully-integrated solution which helps to securely connect clients to their financial institution.

Our enterprise document vault technology proved to be a ‘digital necessity’ during the pandemic – helping to securely connect Private Wealth Management clients to their Financial Advisors to allow them to safely share sensitive documents with bank personnel or a trusted third-party.

Daily Users activity grew at more than 2x the rate during the pandemic compared to prior to the pandemic. This digital transformation was a rocket ship of growth and scale for us and that trend continues to grow to this day.

Securely sharing files might sound ‘old hat’, but it’s more challenging in regulated environments like a bank or wealth management firm. Strict legal and compliance regulations can prohibit employees from sending and receiving files using routine desktop applications, especially with their external clients around the world.

Siftsort.com designed a highly secure platform to help close the gap on compliance and cybersecurity risk so that wealth management clients can share the files they need to with their financial advisor or a trusted third-party directly from their online wealth management portal.

When a financial institution provides a secure vault to help their clients organize their important documents in a safe place – it adds a lot of value. Especially when it’s embedded in their wealth management portal. This makes it a natural place for clients to securely store and share files with the bank or a trusted third-party such as an accountant or lawyer.

Financial firms continue to provide various digital solutions to help make it easy for their clients to interact with the bank and its personnel. And it feels good knowing that the Siftsort.com Enterprise ‘Document Vault’ is helping them make that secure connection.

Siftsort.com Sees New User Adoption Up 422%.

What we do is very relevant in the COVID world we live in. And the numbers prove it.

Siftsort helps you to securely organize and share highly-sensitive documents with family or trusted professionals. Founded by former Goldman Sachs technology executives, our goal is to provide a simple and secure way to share sensitive files.

That might sound simple. And it is to some extent. But sharing sensitive documents in regulated environments (e.g. banks, financial advisory firms, accounting firms, healthcare) is anything but simple. Large scale data breaches can cost millions of dollars in fines and ruin the reputation of the business. It’s these regulations and the potential penalties that may be incurred, which makes the simplest of tasks (sending an email) more complex.

We designed our platforms to help close the gap on compliance and cybersecurity risk so that you can share the content you need to from anywhere, even in a complex (regulated) environment.

Our retail platform

A turn-key solution designed for consumers and small or medium size businesses to seamlessly and securely share sensitive files, when needed. Ideal for personal use or for professionals; such as accountants, lawyers and financial advisors working in teams.

Our enterprise solution

A fully-integrated solution that provides clients a compliant way to organize and share important documents with their Financial Advisors or trusted third-parties, directly from any institutional client portal.

How the COVID pandemic changed the work environment and increased the compliance risk.

When the global lock down occurred, firms had make adjustments to have staff work from home. Again for most employees, managing email and voicemails from the comforts of their home wasn’t so much an issue. But, this in and of itself creates compliance risks for large institutions such as a bank or private wealth management firm. Servicing clients outside the firm, where the in-house compliance system may or may not be able to monitor employee activities raised red flags.

Employees who interact with clients on a day-to-day basis might need to share sensitive files. This sounds easy to the everyday employee. But in a regulated environment, there are restrictions in place on what types of documents can be shared and how. Large firms spend millions of dollars on infrastructure to ensure the majority of their employees have some sort of remote access to the firm. But, there are still challenges for employees who interact with clients from their home. Especially when the only client facing tool might be the company website or a client portal. An integrated secure messaging and document vault platform can help to mitigate these risks when servicing client needs.

Our solutions compliment the tools that are already in place to help professionals interact with clients in a compliant way. More professionals and clients are interacting and sharing sensitive files on our enterprise platforms which are embedded at Fortune 100 financial institutions.

422% increase of new Users in Q1-2021 vs. Q4-2020.
315% increase of new Users compared to the same period last year.
Q1-2021 had generated more new Users than all of 2020.

It should be no wonder that tax season is always busy for us with Professionals and Clients sharing sensitive files back and forth. But during the pandemic, those interactions grew exponentially. And the numbers prove it.

Siftsort.com Obtains Patent For Highly Secure Platform Which Helps Consumers and Professionals Securely Organize, Access and Share Important Documents.

Siftsort.com Obtains Patent For Highly Secure Platform Which Helps Consumers and Professionals Securely Organize, Access and Share Important Documents.

United States Patent and Trademark Office Publishes U.S. Patent No. 9,280,670

NEW YORK, March 29, 2016 – Siftsort.com announced today that they have received a patent grant by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for their secure platform that helps people organize important documents and share them with family or trusted professionals. The USPTO published U.S. Patent No. 9,280,670 on March 8, 2016.

“We are very excited”, says Darren Conte, founder and CEO. “We have worked hard over the years to enhance our platform to make it highly secure and we are proud of the unique way that we have developed our system”, says Conte.

Siftsort makes it easy for consumers to organize and secure important documents like wills, trusts and medical records so that they can be shared when needed. Siftsort also released a professional version for small and medium size businesses to help them securely connect to clients and share files using similar technology that big enterprise firms use including secure messaging and soon to be released e-notarization functionality, included in the patent.

Siftsort for Professionals (www.siftsort.com) helps advisors, CPAs, lawyers and agents to safely organize client files in a secure web platform. Professionals can quickly and easily organize the most sensitive information within minutes and securely collaborate with clients.

Siftsort for Personal (www.siftsort.com) is a free platform that helps people organize important family documents such as identification, medical records and financial statements in their own secure vault. They can then securely share files and collaborate with family or trusted professionals.

Both platforms seamlessly connect to securely share content and collaborate without using unsecured email or third-party file sharing programs. It even audits the activity between each party.

“It’s a simple, turn-key solution that addresses the needs of any professional office. How to share sensitive information without having to worry about violating HIPAA, PCI or other privacy issues,” says Conte.

The founders are former Goldman Sachs & Co. technology executives who spent their careers developing and implementing large-scale applications that supported different areas of the firm including Equities, Fixed Income and Commodities and Global Operations. Siftsort private-labels their platforms to Fortune 100 institutions such as banks, private wealth management firms and trust companies and have been selected as the vendor of choice because they understand the highly regulated environments that these organizations operate in. “The legal and compliance hurdles are complicated but we have been recognized for our experience to securely connect external clients to an enterprise firm”, says Conte.

About Siftsort.com

Siftsort.com is an innovative software company that helps people securely organize, access and share what’s important to them. The founders have comprehensive expertise creating leading web technology and secure document management tools for the financial services sector in accordance with New York Stock Exchange, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and Securities and Exchange Commission regulations.

Contact
Karine Adalian
karine.adalian@siftsort.com

Year-End Organizing: Digital Files Part II of III

Second in the series of posts on organizing for the new year.

We all have important documents that need safekeeping. The problem is that we don’t have access to these documents when we need them the most, say after a disaster, during a medical crisis, or in a travel emergency.
More than online storage, the Siftsort.com service allows households to securely organize, access, and share important family documents and records using various technology devices.
Users can access medical records, financial papers, or other family information securely over the Internet or by calling a Toll-Free Hotline.
Professionals such as doctors, accountants, and lawyers can securely view, contribute, and exchange information on behalf of the user.

While Siftsort.com is great for storing and securely sharing important documents with advisors, family and medical professionals, you certainly have digital documents that don’t need of that level of security.

As you go through your files, you may find some you need to add to your Siftsort.com account, which is free if you don’t have huge storage needs.

We do not use ‘shared’ cloud infrastructure, we use only dedicated servers and storage disks for further protection because we license our platform to financial companies, who prefer it that way.

Here are some ways to organize those non-critical documents now from Apartment Therapy:

“Everyone’s digital life and needs are different. Consider this a very basic guide on how to do a little digital cleaning and organizing of your computer in a couple of hours so you can have a system that runs a little smoother and so you can find files you need a little easier.

1. Backup now!

Before you start doing any deleting, fiddling, cleaning or sorting — backup everything important to you, whether in the cloud, by syncing with another computer or by using an external hard drive….

3. Design a file structure that works for you

There are many ways to structure the files on your computer. In fact, you can get fairly technical with this task (we like articles like this one and this one from Lifehacker). But if you’ve got all of your data files — photos, PDFs, text documents and more — cluttering your desktop, you could benefit from establishing and using a basic file structure — much like you would organize your paper files.
→ The starting point is deciding what your highest level folders are. These are the big parts of your life. From your photos, to work files, to finances to half-written sci-fi novels, these are the categories that will serve as the first portal into your digital life. (Some folks let these big folders live in “My Documents,” others stick them straight to the hard drive — just don’t put these folders on your desktop!)

→ Put all the free-floating files into the correct top level folders. Put any errant photos in the big photo folder. All taxes, bills and more in the finances folder. (Or whatever folders you’ve made for yourself).

→ Then, organize each big top level folder into smaller, more specific sub-folders, one at a time. Take it one folder at a time, and start putting files (or other folders) in an order that will make sense when you need to find them again. Consolidate existing folders so they begin to fit into your new, more organized file structure. Don’t be afraid to go deep with sub-folders. You don’t really want to have a folder with say, 1 file in it, but you don’t want to stop at folder that has like, 50 files in it. ”

What Happens When Siftsortpro.com is Combined with Siftsort.com?

Friday Case Study: One of the ways professionals are using Siftsortpro.com is to work with their clients in a way that is secure, but simplifies all their lives and their work flow.

Instead of logging in to several different accounts, there is one secure login that allows the professional to securely share documents, store documents, chat and email with clients, allows them to send emails to all their clients at the same time, share information individually, and so on.

For example, an accountant sending our their year-end tax organizer can send out an email to all clients, saying “watch for an upcoming email with their individual tax organizer, print it out, put in a folder and then as year-end statements come in, put the statements in the folder and have it all together for a quick time to review and fill out.’

As mentioned in an earlier blog post, one CPA firm did this and saved over $50,000/year, allowing the employees to spend their time with clients instead of shuffling paper.

Then, they can send the individual tax planner to each individually either from a secure folder (if the client is a Siftsort.com user), or by sending a secure link to each client (if not using Siftsort.com).

Alternatively, they can even avoid the trouble of the paper files and if they are used to getting online statements form their bank, investment accounts and whatever else, they can upload to their individual Siftsort.com account and share that set of documents with their accountant. Then using the chat function, they can communicate with their tax professional in a secure environment instantly.

All of this is within a secure environment. When the two platforms are used with each other, the data and transmission of files never leaves our environment, or exposing itself to the Internet. Files are securely transferred from within our environment (server-to-server). As also mentioned in previous blog post, customers can be so happy, they refer other clients, family and friends. If you are a professional advisor, isn’t that the kind of ringing endorsement you want?

Case Study: A CPA Firm Client Hack Drives Innovation

An accounting firm had recently implemented Siftsortpro.com after one of their large clients had her email hacked while traveling abroad.

The culprits had studied her email subject matter, vernacular and such and derived a way to send a series of emails from her account, to her administrator and broker requesting the transfer of nearly $400,000 over a few weeks time period. A similar task she would due as part of her normal course of business to certain vendors and partners.

While the accounting firm was not directly involved in any way, the partners realized the importance of not sending sensitive client information through their corporate email system. Data breaches can cost a CPA their license to practice.

Cost Savings That Matter
After implementation and training the 13-person firm, they realized an annual savings of $52,800 on postage, envelopes, paper, toner and reduced man-hours.

They increased the productivity of their entire office by streamlining the workflow and securely sharing client documents using Siftsortpro.com and having their clients use Siftsort.com.

“Siftsort saves of time, money and gives us peace of mind knowing that client files are highly secure”, Ross Wisdom, CPA

Everyday consumers are transmitting sensitive personal information to their trusted professionals in an unsecured manner. Its reckless to pass a blank form to a client in email and expect them to fill it out and simply email it back. As crazy as this sounds, it happens annually with my own insurance agent. Of course, I never comply instead using my own products (Siftsort.com) to send her a secure link to safely retrieve the documents from me. But come on? Wake up!