Thomson Reuters — GoFileRoom - CPA Practice Advisor

From the July 2009 Review of Document
Management Systems

If
you were to review the archives of my previous EDMS reviews in this magazine,
you would find that I have consistently emphasized GoFileRoom’s intuitive,
easy-to-use interface.

USABILITY:
The fact that the opening screen displays a virtual file cabinet with dynamic
drawers that open and close in an animated fashion is about as intuitive as
you can get. When you open a drawer you can enter a combination of index values
that you define for that drawer to help you save and retrieve files. For example,
you can enter a client name or number, a fiscal year(s) and a document type
such as “tax return” to display all of the tax return files for
that client for that year or multiple years. When the “hit list”
of documents is displayed, you can sort by any of the columns of data displayed.
A “right click” menu allows you to directly email a document via
Outlook, publish it to the integrated portal, edit, delete it, and more, provided
you have the appropriate level of access permission.

FILE ORGANIZATION/MANAGEMENT:
GoFileRoom provides a highly customizable file organization environment. It
starts with the file cabinet to which you assign a name. You can establish a
virtually unlimited number of drawers, i.e. clients, firm administration, HR,
etc. Each drawer can have its own indexing structure for organizing files. For
example, the clients’ drawer files can be organized by client name, partner
in charge, fiscal year, file type, etc., whereas the HR drawer would typically
be organized by employee.

You can restrict access to drawers and files using a very granular security
model. The document retention functionality embedded into GoFileRoom lets you
apply your retention policy consistently based on the documents metadata values.

INTEGRATION:
A sign that GoFileRoom has evolved to a mature application is evident in the
improvements that have been made in regards to integration with other applications.
The MS Office integration facilitates storing and retrieving GoFileRoom files
from within these applications just about as seamlessly as the File Open and
Save commands. Outlook integration is designed to allow you to capture email
message data to establish your index value, and you can choose to store the
message and attachments as a single msg file or unbundle them and selectively
choose the attachment files you want to save or discard. GoFileRoom has unique
desktop integration that allows you to drag and drop files from the desktop
to GoFileRoom and also allows you to highlight text and initiate a GoFileRoom
search from any application (i.e. Quick Launch).

A configurable import utility let’s you import your client list from
virtually any practice management system, as well as any of the popular tax
preparation programs. Direct integration is offered with GoSystem Tax and Practice
CS out of the box. GoFileRoom has partnered with Copanion and SurePrep to help
with automating the capturing of scanned tax documents.

The integrated FirmFlow module has become one of GoFileRoom’s most distinguishing
attributes. FirmFlow lets you establish a workflow for all of your key business
processes — tax preparation, audit, accounting services, etc. For each
workflow engagement, you create a virtual folder that contains all of the key
information necessary to manage and complete an engagement, such as forms to
be filed, milestones to be completed, review note tracking, engagement checklist,
routing history and more.

The integrated ClientFlow module is a dynamic two-way portal. You can publish
documents from GoFileRoom directly with a single click “publish”
button, and the file can be removed from the portal by simply unchecking it.
Clients can upload files to the portal, as well. And the RecordsFlow module
allows the firm to define retention rules to manage the retention (automatic
archive or deletion) of documents.

RELATIVE VALUE:
GoFileRoom is only available as a web hosted solution, which means the price
includes the cost of providing the network infrastructure and administration
services at a Thomson Reuters world-class data center. The entry-level pricing
offers a good value at $3,995 per year for five users for this document management
and workflow tool. This includes the document management software, FirmFlow
module, ClientFlow portal module, the network, data center and hosting services.

2009 OVERALL RATING: