Being an opinionated bunch, financial advisers let me know when I write a story that fails to include a product they like.
Chal Daniels of Harvest Financial LLC recently reminded me that I had overlooked the electronic document management suite from eFileCabinet Inc. that he has used for almost three years.
Last week, the company rolled out version 5.0 of its software, which has almost 24,000 users, the single largest contingent of whom are accountants, followed by 2,000 advisers.
Because of its low cost, eFileCabinet is one of a handful of such services that are a particularly good fit for smaller independent advisory firms.
At Harvest, a registered investment advisory firm that focuses on planning and manages $24 million in assets, Mr. Daniels spent about $2,000 for the software (the minimum installation starts at $1,295). There is also a $300 annual maintenance fee that covers the firm's five users.
What he likes most about the software is how easy it was to set up, how intuitive it is to use and that it remains relatively inexpensive, Mr. Daniels said. It has seen him through state audits and unannounced compliance visits from his broker-dealer, First Allied Securities Inc., without problems.
Mr. Daniels also likes that the software helps him maintain his independence.
DATA CAN TRAVEL
“Let's say, just as a hypothetical, that one day I want to go to another broker-dealer. The question is whether I will have access to my data, and the answer is yes,” Mr. Daniels said.
One of the key areas upgraded in the software's latest version is its document-level indexing and full-text search capabilities. Earlier versions relied on a homegrown search capability; this release reflects a collaboration with dtSearch Corp.
That company's text retrieval technology includes the ability to search through just about any file type and offers lots of field types for data searches. Speed is one of the things dtSearch has always bragged about, and it is capable of searching terabytes of data within seconds.
Among the other improvements to eFileCabinet are new document retention features that allow a user to archive, copy or purge files automatically, along with work flow features that can streamline the exchange of documents between users.
Users also are now able to track the life span of documents through file versioning.
OUT-OF-STATE CLIENTS
Mr. Daniels particularly likes the software's ability to maintain a document's integrity in a way that is crucial in his work with out-of-state clients.
“About 15 of my 200 clients have moved away and want to maintain the relationship. When I'm scheduled to meet with them over the phone, I can send them a PDF, which is maintained in the system just the way I sent it — and that's a big deal,” he said.
Matt Peterson, chief executive of eFileCabinet, said that his firm caters to small and midsize businesses, which he defines as enterprises ranging from one user “up to maybe a couple hundred.” He said there are no plans to go beyond that into large-scale offerings.
Although the software continues to run locally on a firm's servers and PCs, a web-based software-as-a-service version is scheduled for release by year-end. The company also sells two online services: SecureDrawer, a client vault for storing documents (from $9.99 to $595 per month) and Concentsus Online Backup ($3.95 a month plus 50 cents per gigabyte of data).
For RIAs, the closest competitors to eFileCabinet are Cabinet NG, Laserfiche and World Software Corp.
Cabinet NG's CNG-Safe and CNG-Online document management software typically serves firms with five to 15 people, but the number of users can range from two to more than 100.
The base price for a typical self-hosted Safe installation is $2,500, while the online version hosted by CNG costs from $65 to $95 a month, depending on the number of users. Fees include backup and support services.
Laserfiche's Avante document management product is self-hosted and geared toward RIAs and independent broker-dealers. It costs about $500 per user and provides built-in work flow features, something lacking in previous versions of eFileCabinet.
Laserfiche's Intuition Pro is suited to very small offices of no more than two advisers. It focuses exclusively on document management.
World Software Corp. got its start serving the document management needs of law firms, but its software has become increasingly popular with advisers. Its Worldox GX2 software typically runs on a local server and costs $395 per concurrent user along with an $80 annual maintenance fee per license.
Links to companies/products mentioned:
eFileCabinet
Cabinet NG
Docupace
Laserfiche IntuitionPro and
Laserfiche Avante
World Software Corp. (Worldox GX2)
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E-mail Davis D. Janowski at [email protected].
