Secure document storage is bought by a small firm after the shared drive has let it down once, and the buying mistake is to look for a stronger lock rather than a better record. A secure document is one the firm can find by number, prove who opened, and retain for the period it decided, and business document storage that does those three things is secure whether it lives on a drive or in a portal. This page says what secure document storage must do, what HIPAA compliant document storage adds for a firm holding covered files, and why secure documents and secure docs are a record, not a folder. The free document capture worksheet on this site sizes the backlog first.
A secure document is numbered, logged and retained
Security starts with the record. Every page gets a number when it is captured, so it can be cited and found; every open and every share is logged against a person, so the firm can answer who saw what; and every file carries a retention date, so the firm keeps what it decided to keep and no more. A folder with a password does none of that. Business document storage judged on those three records is a different purchase from storage judged on encryption alone, and it is the one a small firm needs.
What HIPAA compliant document storage adds
A firm holding files covered by HIPAA needs the storage vendor to sign a business associate agreement, to encrypt files at rest and in transit, and to keep the access log the Security Rule expects, which the HHS page cited below sets out. Whether a particular file is covered is the firm's adviser's question, not the software's, and the terms on this site say so; the software's job is to make the covered file behave like every other secure document, numbered, logged and retained, with the sharing done through a portal rather than an attachment.
Storage plans, and what the record costs
Dropbox publishes its Standard team plan at $15 per user per month with 3 TB for the team and Advanced at $24 per user per month with 15 TB, which is the going rate for storage by the seat. Batesio Pro is $19 a month for the whole firm and is the record on top of whatever storage the firm keeps: the Bates number on every page, the client portal for sharing, the access log and the retention record with an export. The free document capture worksheet sizes the backlog, the scan hours and the pages a retention period keeps before the firm pays for either.
Questions people ask about secure document storage
Is a password-protected folder secure document storage?
It is a locked folder. Secure document storage numbers the page, logs who opened it and carries a retention date; a lock does none of that.
What must HIPAA compliant document storage have?
A business associate agreement from the vendor, encryption at rest and in transit, and an access log. Whether a given file is covered is the adviser's call.
How long should a small firm keep a document?
As long as the retention rule it wrote for that file type; the free worksheet turns the rule into the pages kept, and the law behind the rule is the adviser's.
Does Batesio replace Dropbox?
No. It keeps the record, the numbering, the portal, the log and the retention, on top of whatever storage the firm already uses.