How to send your annual accounts securely to your accountant
Bank statements, invoices and annual accounts say a lot about your business. This is how to share them with your accountant without leaving them in ordinary mailboxes for years.
If you hand your records to your accountant safely, a hacked email account cannot expose years of business data. That lowers the risk, and it also gives you peace of mind: you know the documents reached the right person and are not left sitting as attachments in mailboxes.
In this article you will read which documents you share, why email makes that a problem, how to do it differently in a few minutes and what accountants can do to make it easier for their clients.
What business owners usually share
- Bank statements and receipts.
- Purchase and sales invoices.
- Payroll records and a copy of the director's ID.
- Draft and final annual accounts.
- Tax assessments and contracts, such as a lease or rental agreement.
Together those documents show how much you earn, who your customers and suppliers are, where your money is and who is on your payroll. For a fraudster that is enough to build a convincing fake invoice or payment request, in exactly the tone and with the amounts you are used to.
Why email is the problem
After sending, an attachment sits in several places: in your sent folder, in your accountant's mailbox, on the laptops and phones those mailboxes sync to and with the email providers. You cannot recall the message and you no longer decide who sees the copies. If one of those mailboxes is hijacked, everything ever emailed is suddenly open. You usually only notice when it is too late.
Take a business owner who emails his documents to his accountant every year. After five years there are five years of statements, invoices and payslips in his sent folder and in the office's. One day the accountant's password is stolen through a fake login page. The thief only has to log in once and search for 'annual accounts' or 'bank statement'. Everything you ever sent is there for the taking.
On top of that, an ordinary email is not always shielded from the parties that relay it. Like a postcard, an attachment can in principle be read by several parties. An encrypted transfer solves that, because the files can then only be opened with a key that does not circulate freely.
How to arrange it in a few minutes
The aim is that only your accountant can open the files, that you can see they arrived and that nobody can fetch them through a link or mailbox afterwards. That takes no technical knowledge, only a different route than email.
- Gather the documents in one go, so you do not have to send several emails and do not forget anything.
- Choose a short lifetime, for example 5 days. After that the link stops working and nobody can fetch the files any more.
- Have a code sent to your accountant's email address. That way only that person opens the files, even if someone intercepts the link.
- Let TransferGuard email the link, or share it yourself. The code goes separately to your accountant's address when they open the link.
- Keep the email you receive once everything has been downloaded. It shows when the files were fetched and that they arrived complete and unchanged. With Certified Delivery you also get a PDF report that is kept for 1 year.
Keep in mind that this confirmation shows the files were fetched, not that anyone read them. If you want to be sure it is your accountant personally, ask for an identity check of the recipient. That is possible with Certified Delivery.
What is safe enough? A comparison
| Method | Who can look along | What is left behind |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinary email with attachment | Mailboxes and providers on both sides | Copies in Sent and Inbox, sometimes for years |
| Shared folder with a public link | Anyone who has the link | Files stay until someone deletes them |
| Encrypted link with a code | Only the recipient who confirms | No attachments in mailboxes. At TransferGuard the files disappear after the chosen period; the downloaded copy is with your accountant |
The difference lies mostly in what is left behind. With an encrypted link with a short lifetime, after a few days there is nothing left to fetch through the link or your mailbox, whatever happens to that mailbox later. That makes it easier for you too: you do not have to remember which documents are where and when to clean them up.
Common mistakes
- Putting a file's password in the same email. That is as easy to get around as an open envelope.
- Sharing a link with no expiry. The files then stay open long after the work is done.
- Keeping all years in one shared folder 'for convenience'. One leaked account and everything is open.
- Sending documents to an email address you copied from an earlier message. For new or changed addresses, first check by phone that it is right.
- Not checking that everything arrived. A missing attachment often only shows up when the return is filed.
For accountants: let your clients deliver it themselves
If you request documents as an office, you know the problem: half-finished email chains with attachments, clients who do not know what to send and files lost between messages. An upload portal removes that from the process. You make one request, the client sees exactly what you need and everything arrives in one place.
With Certified Delivery you send your client a link to an upload portal in your own branding. The client uploads encrypted without an account and only you can open the files. Your client does not need to create anything, and you do not need to keep a personal mailbox full of sensitive attachments.
How TransferGuard handles this
Files are encrypted in the sender's browser before they are uploaded and are stored encrypted in the EU. By default TransferGuard emails the recipient a link without a key. The key is stored encrypted with us and is only released after your accountant confirms with a code by email, or with Certified Delivery also with a text message code or an identity check. The recipient needs no account or app.
Do you want the key never to reach our server? Choose 'You share the link yourself'. Only that choice is end-to-end encrypted. After the period you choose, the files are deleted (our clean-up job runs every 15 minutes). For free you can send up to 3 GB per transfer, 3 transfers per calendar month, available for 5 days. Certified Delivery (15 euros per month excl. VAT) offers up to 25 GB per transfer, a retention period of 5, 14 or 30 days and a PDF report with a timestamp from an independent party that is kept for 1 year.
This article is general information. Which documents you must keep or provide is decided by your accountant and the law.