NetDocuments R5-09

From the June 2010 Review of Document
Management Systems.

This
product was launched in 1999 and has been primarily focused on law firms and
financial services organizations. The vendor claims to be custodian for over
100 million documents. NetDocuments is beginning to target the accounting firm
marketplace, with 20 firms currently using the system. There is no direct integration
with tax or accounting software out of the box.

CORE PRODUCT FEATURES & FUNCTIONS:
NetDocuments’ interface is very intuitive and easy to work in. The file
storage is based on a collapsible folder list along the left side of the screen.
As an alternative to viewing a document hit list, you can set up and access
documents through a workspace. The pre-defined templates for organizing documents
within a client workspace provide a dashboard of all the files associated with
the client.

A comprehensive audit trail of all activity related to a document is maintained,
as well as user login history and email notifications history. OCR functionality
is not included with the system at this time; but the vendor plans to add server-based
OCR later this year.

INTEGRATION:
You can create a new document or file from within NetDocuments by selecting
the source application software and the folder in which you want to store the
file. An integrated workflow module is not available, but many of the vendor’s
clients have interfaced NetDocuments with Metastorm, an industry-leading workflow
automation system. The document viewer supports 80 different file formats.

The integration with MS Office applications is one of the best I’ve
seen. NetDocuments essentially hijacks (for lack of a better term) the Windows
File | Save and File | Open commands. Instead of accessing the Windows Explorer
folders, these commands are re-directed to the NetDocuments folders.

REMOTE CAPABILITIES:
Perhaps the greatest strength of NetDocuments is its remote capabilities. It
is a 100 percent web-hosted, browser-based solution. Only files checked out
for editing are stored at the local level. The integrated portal solution provides
clients a personal URL to access a binder of documents pub-lished to their portal
account. Documents can be moved from the DMS database to the portal via drag
and drop.

SYSTEM MANAGEMENT:
Document security is set at the folder level using VESA — view, edit,
share, administer — as alternative permission levels. A unique feature
is the ability to apply a footer with a unique document ID on each document.
When you use the File | Save As command, you have the option to store individual
versions of the document.

A full document retention management module is included. A retention policy
can be set up based on any combination of metadata values. A report can be generated
at any time to list out documents that are scheduled for purging. The system
is stored in redundant data centers and can provide restoration of any document
stored in the last 30 days within five minutes. You also have the option to
set up a local (on-premise) backup server.

SUMMARY & PRICING
NetDocuments is a well designed, easy-to-use web-hosted solution, and you should
be able to deploy it fairly quickly. I would like to see more direct integration
with accounting and tax software to make it a more complete solution for the
typical tax and accounting firm. The pricing model is attractive at $20 per
user, per month. A $30 per user, per month option provides more ability to customize
the document properties along with stronger administrative features.

2010 OVERALL RATING: