Linda Artesani and Sarah Prevost share why accountants shouldn't use email for sensitive data like W-4s and bank credentials. They demo Lissio, a secure platform that replaces risky email with protected file sharing and a dedicated app, cutting down phishing threats and ransomware risk.
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Hey Sarah, my buddy.
Hi.
So Sarah Prevost, this is Linda Artesani, Artesani Bookkeeping, and I'm introducing Sarah Prevost because she and I have been collaborating on some things, working together. Actually, we got a secret, but we can't tell you, but something good is gonna come at the end of next month that we'll kind of dive into. But we're not gonna tell you, we're gonna kind of tease you along the month. But today we're talking about Communicating with our customers. Sarah has the exact same business I have. She's on the West Coast, I'm on the East Coast. I'm gonna start with my horror story, and this happened a couple of times, and then I'm gonna let you tell your horror story, and then we'll dive into what we're doing to fix it. So mine is, had a client who I noticed they had a new employee, so she was the admin, and I said, you know, I need information from her to set her up in payroll. So I emailed her and said, hey, I know you're new in the company and I just need you to send me this information, your W-4 and, you know, everything that goes with the package, right?
Yeah.
Can you, you know, send that to me? And in the bottom of my email line is I had a ShareFile link so they could email it to me in ShareFile. And she went, sure, and attached her driver's license, copy of her driver's license, her W-4, Her— oh yeah, it gets worse. Her new hire information. She also added to it a copy of her check and her direct deposit form. So everything and anything you'd need to steal somebody's identity, she sent to me by email. She just responded and didn't click the link. So tell me your story, Sarah. You can tell us a little bit about your business too as you get in here.
Yeah, so my business is Vintage Labs. Based in Portland, same style of business as you, accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, all the good stuff, all pre-tax, get you up there to, you know, right where you want it.
Hard work.
Yeah, all the hard work, all the heavy lifting. That's a crazy story, Linda. And mine is somewhat similar, but a little twist on it. I was asking for the Accountant Lover level access for the bank accounts and so forth. And I received a nice email, but in that email contained where to go, the username, and password for each one, all in one email. And I said—
With the link right there. Just, you know, better jump on that one and change everything immediately. Oh, Lori.
Like, why? And it You know, sort of like got the little mind switch going, like, all right, where do I wanna go next? Where do I wanna invest my money to ensure I can house these things in a more secure way, have more meaningful dialogue inside of those types of platforms, and not have to use 5 different apps to make one thing work?
Which is so big. I think that was the thing that hooked me in like headfirst because I just, it's just so many apps. So how did you find them?
So I had seen them. I had actually at QuickBooks Connect 2 years ago had— yeah, it was 2 years ago— watched a demo for Rootworks, Lissio. It was like a whole product thing. And at the time, it didn't click as a meaningful tool for me at that moment. I think also they were new to the platform in a lot of ways. So new pricing structure, and that structure was a little different at that time. So a lot of people that haven't seen it since that moment, because that was a full house, filled room, it has changed quite a bit. So, and it came about 2 or 3 more times, you know, like product demo, like most of all of us, we get these phone calls.
Okay.
And something clicked this time, and I was listening to it, and it hit me that I don't have to do the email thing any longer with clients. Especially if you're my client and we're inside and we need to be working, I wanted a better platform to house important information, all of our communication, have an app that I can also use.
Ah, yeah.
The new feature that they have, which is text messaging, which is pretty wild. I just did a quick one for you and so forth. So anyways, so that's why. And then I had to, of course, naturally spread the good word to you and a couple other people. I know.
I'm so grateful, 'cause it really, I mean, the app is, it's just an answer to my prayers because we all hate email, right? I think everybody can agree. We all hate email. So this is like bringing us back to the days when it was just really communicating with each other and not all the other crap that comes in. So why don't you share your screen and show the side that you and I use for Lissio? Yeah.
So here's the less noisy platform, which of course this is blank right now. But if you had messages in here from your clients, they would all be filled in. And what we can do is go ahead and just shoot a new message to Linda. Say okay. Um, we need a subject.
Yep, even in regular email.
Very similar. Yep. And you can bullet point list of items. Oops, sometimes you type weekend 1, 2, 3. Bank statements, bank password. You can do something like that in an email. You can have this notify you via text. As well. So it will come through the Firm App. Yes.
So I'm gonna— if you stop sharing, I'll share what I received by the email. And then I'm getting like all these messages right now. So let's go. So this is the email when you invited me. So you had already invited me. That's how my name was in there. So this is a nice email and I could come in and activate the account. But even though I didn't even activate the account, I'm already getting messages. And I already got a message here that's Modern Advisors has invited me to join them on Lissio. And I can go in there and see the product demo. And you got a message from you. This is our new platform. So it's really cool.
Look at that. It also shows you right there, you can click there to get the app right away. So you don't have to go hunting for it.
Which is great, right? Because I want the app. The app is really neat. And then we'll go back here. And then obviously, I can activate my account with you. And we're going to go more in depth with this in a future video. But we wanted to at least share that it Just to show you how simple it is. I mean, I actually think I got, I got a couple of emails here too from you because I got that one and I got the other 2 messages that you sent me.
But you want to focus in a little bit too at the bottom here to talk about one of the security things that really hit a huge point for both Linda and I, and I can speak to about both of us, is the whole fact about email is risky. We sort of started with that at the beginning of the video and really kind of like hones in on Some of the dangerous habits of email and how easy it is to accidentally send something you didn't intend on in email and why a secure platform like Lissio will be a better place to have all of that information and just start driving your communication there.
Right, because there's like ransomware and you can actually have your whole computer taken over. There's lots of not really nice things out there that are— there's been some emails I've gotten gotten from Intuit that look like an Intuit email.
Yeah.
And they're not. And I've had clients send me them because they're like, is this real? And then I'll send it to, you know, the Intuit spoof and then they'll check it. A couple times it came back that it was real, but it kind of scared me because they were looking for— wanted me to click a link. And I'm like, nope, not clicking a link. Just like you would never click a link. Your bank won't send you one. IRS will never send you one. So, you know, those are kind of tips that you need to be aware of and Things that you and I know, but some people just don't know that. So it's important that we just— this is a way to keep it secure for our clients because if she was going to answer me, that girl that I sent the thing to, she could. It's so easy to answer right there and then she's out of the world of where it can get out into the bad people and it's just communicating. It's real simple.
Well, and you have to thread through a bunch of emails. I'm so done with that. I just want a dedicated space going right to that person's account with that type of communication and not just close my mind off from all— just really channeled and very clean, very easy to use.
Yes, no email stacking. I hate the stacking.
Oh man, it's annoying.
Yeah. It's a great— and it's— we'll admit it, it's pretty, right? We like it. It's pretty.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so thank you for coming on and working with me on this and all the other stuff that we're working on. We're just getting ready and getting into some stuff.
Thank you.
I'm not going to tell them. It's a secret. So yeah, you have to tune in and keep watching us to find out what we're up to. But great content. Thank you for joining. And we'll put— I'm going to put this all into the blog and share it out to everybody and you. And we can just keep sharing and sharing the sharing the information that we know that's going to help other accountants and bookkeepers keep their data secure.
