Skip to main content

The importance of Trust

The importance of Trust

Data breaches, corporate re-structuring and collapses have alerted business to the value of an intangible ... trust.

We are big advocates for the use of email as a communication medium rather than the paper documents of the past. Working in law firms and accounting firms though has always been at odds with "Paperless" and environmentally responsible communication.

I believe that as a profession it is no longer possible to ignore paperless processing. The time has come to embrace the challenges and implement features like electronic payments WITH the requisite controls.

Unfortunately we see a focus on the problem and not the solution. Electronic control systems can close fraud options that are available now.

A recent article in New Zealand is a case in point. OpenEFT would have prevented this fraud.

The conclusion that Lawyers and clients should be careful with emailed instructions could have been ensure you have systems and policies in place that address known risks.

The "don't trust email" advice came after an instance of email hacking where a hacker gained control of both a lawyer’s email account and a client’s email account. Posing as both, he instructed the lawyer to deposit client funds into his bank account and then emailed the client advising that everything was fine.

https://www.lawsociety.org.nz/lawtalk/issue-852/lawyers-and-clients-warned-to-be-careful-with-emailed-instructions

Mr Kennerley says the Law Society’s advice to lawyers and clients communicating with them is that they should assume the emails they receive may not be genuine.
Labels:

Popular

Shopify and WooCommerce gain eCommerce market share

According to BuiltWith a site measuring the top web sites and the technology used behind it the results for August show Shopify building to a 19% share of "Australian" eCommerce sites. There are a few holes here though as this uses geographical data and .au  domains. It is cheaper to use a .com domain though and many sites are hosted on remote servers. BigCommerce also saw some local growth with some better pricing and more attention to new sites. This came at the expense of old systems like osCommerce and ZenCart. The "Other" space has grown which includes Neto . Statistics for websites using Ecommerce technologies in Australia https://trends.builtwith.com/shop/country/Australia When looking globally at the top Million sites Shopify is dwarfed by WooCommerce. As we have pointed out WooCommerce is used by a very large number of sites, it may not be as successful but it gives a shopfront at little cost. The global strength of WooCommerce was throu
Read more

Billing quick wins

Billing quick wins How you bill your clients makes a big difference to cash flow. The way you bill has everything to do with how payment will be made. Are you giving your clients an easy excuse to not pay you?   1. State the payment terms Firms traditionally offer credit easily. Whilst new clients are accepted through a risk analysis process the voice of the Credit Controller is not heard enough. These processes should identify potential risks through references to available searches and past history including the firm’s own records. Before you offer credit make sure you agree and negotiate the terms of payment. You do not have to accept the 30 days from the end of the month the invoice was received. You are allowed to ask for a shorter term. What is important is that the client understands the terms and agrees to these terms before you start the matter. As a reminder, always ensure that the payment terms are listed on every bill. State the actual due date which is mo
Read more