Lovewell Blake is one of the leading professional firms in East Anglia employing 240 staff and 26 partners. Virtual Cabinet was installed in September 2012 and the implementation is described as “one of the smoothest transitions of software the firm has ever experienced.”

Feedback from partners and staff about the new document management system has been amazing, according to Steven Scarlett, partner, Lovewell Blake.

"One partner said to me the other day that Virtual Cabinet has changed his life."

- Steven Scarlett, Partner, Lovewell Blake

Steven is very impressed with the Virtual Cabinet team and their efforts to ensure a smooth transition. “They have been absolutely fantastic and have spent an awful lot of time helping us with processes and training us on how best to use the system. It is one of the smoothest transitions of software we have ever experienced. With IT projects, you can sometimes be disappointed but it is totally the opposite experience with Virtual Cabinet – we are extremely pleased.”

Internal processes have already been transformed with the post now scanned electronically on arrival, distributed electronically and worked on electronically. This represents a major shift in working practices as the firm was still using
paper despite having installed a document management system some years ago.

"We were still using paper to work on and our Easy Document Management System was effectively used as little more than an archive system."

- Steven Scarlett, Partner, Lovewell Blake

“We had been discussing replacing the system for the last two to three years and had decided that we would look for a more ‘user- friendly’ solution with a client portal – something that would set us apart from our competitors and provide our clients with added value.” Several scenarios were discussed, including the in-house development of a portal but this was soon dismissed and it was decided that it would be better to implement the tried and tested Virtual Cabinet solution.

“We looked at other offerings but consider the Virtual Cabinet portal to be more developed,” says Steven. “We need a solution that is user-friendly and Virtual Cabinet fits that bill from both the perspective of the practice and the client.”

Like many accountancy practices, Lovewell Blake is receiving more and more enquiries from clients for documents to be emailed and needed to find a secure method for sending sensitive payroll information and confidential returns.

The integrated document portal within Virtual Cabinet allows the firm to do exactly that and gives the firm the ability to store key client documents on the portal so they are available whenever a client needs to refer to them.

Virtual Cabinet is building a strong following amongst professional firms such as Lovewell Blake who need to find a secure way of communicating with their clients. The strategically developed document management system provides a seamless and secure end-to-end automated document delivery process for the legally admissible digital sign-off of tax returns, final accounts and p35s and provides a real and tangible solution to growing concerns about the control and security of digital information.

"Partners who have used the portal to communicate with clients have received positive feedback."

- Steven Scarlett, Partner, Lovewell Blake

“We expect the client portals to really come into their own when we hit the busy tax season.” In the final stage of the implementation, the firm’s new practice management software has been integrated and the data held by the Easy system has been migrated into Virtual Cabinet.