A single document may be carefully remembered as to where you might have placed them in order to use them for any other day. But what if it is a set of documents that you may require to produce after a gap of say 10-15 years? Storing them might cause some trouble. Well in order to help you out of this misery companies are stepping forward to provide the service of documenting all your documents and also provide you with online space for storing them. With this not only are you safe guarding your most important documents but also provide details of all your documents as and when required for completing any type of transactions.
If for example, you have applied for a loan, say a home loan, and at the time of processing your documents the bank requires you to submit the tax returns filed by you over the course of last 3 years. And if you have misplaced even one of them, your loan may not be processed. Let us consider another example, in case of any health related issues, storing medical reports is very important as it can be vital in case of medical emergencies. In the event of encountering any missing medical report, you might have to undergo the entire process of examination to arrive at the results that the particular missing report contained. In order to save that precious time, utilize this service!
Digitizing documents can also help those people who generally have the habit of misplacing their documents. Apart from the facility of providing space for storage, these companies move on to provide you with additional facility of organizing your documents on separate folders.
Services that you can get:
– Online storage in portable docs in pdf, jpg and various other formats.
– Convert physical documents into digital formats, with the option of uploading online
All this can be availed from a minimum of Rs 500 per annum and may even go up to Rs 2000 depending on the services you require.
How to retrieve files:
It is simple. All you need is a log in id, search for your relevant documents and download it.
Which are the Companies offering this service?
ICICI Securities has launched a facility called eSafe on its online broking platform, ICICIdirect.com for its customers, where it gives free 25 MB online space to store documents and images. This is provided free of cost.
Another company ITR Vault.in helps you upload and store documents related to income-tax and wealth tax.
Myhealthrecords.in helps you digitally archive your medical documents. Documents like ECGs, X-rays and MRIs, lab reports, medical bills and hospital records etc can be stored.
How safe is it?
Well compared to the traditional system of scanning your documents and storing it in your folders of your computer, which might be at the risk of a total system crash or saving in your drafts of your email does not eliminate the possibility that your email might get hacked. In order to protect yourself from such circumstances, it is better you adopt the services provided by these companies at a nominal fee. They also provide ample security for your files so that you get round the clock protection for all your documents. Companies like ICICI Direct.com require you to change your password in every 15 days whereas ITRVault offers a unique system of a dual password facility. You can provide the second password to your aide who can utilize this password only for adding or reading any documents. The person will not have the accessibility to amend or delete any part or the whole of any document.