Simplifying Nonprofit Accounting with Qbox: Secure File Sharing and Collaboration

The U.S. alone has nearly 2 million nonprofits. All over the world, non-profit organizations play an important role in promoting the socioeconomic welfare of millions of people. These non-profits may often have a need to collaborate and share QuickBooks files among their key officials and beyond. Luckily, with the availability of efficient solutions like Qbox, remote QuickBooks file sharing for nonprofits is a breeze these days. Additionally, the advent of cloud computing means that cloud storage for nonprofits is no longer a dream but a practicable reality. Online file storage for nonprofits or any other organization has a number of benefits.

Nonprofit Accounting Explained

Every registered organization that receives and spends money (whether for-profit or non-profit) must perform bookkeeping and accounting operations.  As a key component of the document management system for nonprofit organizations, nonprofit accounting involves the tracking and documentation of all monetary transactions (incomings and outgoings) by a nonprofit organization.

Some important aspects of non-profit accounting include budgeting, recording revenues and expenditures, preparing financial statements and analysis reports, and ensuring compliance with relevant laws and regulations. To prevent loss or corruption online file storage for nonprofits can also be considered an important accounting best practice.

Though nonprofit accounting has many similarities with corporate accounting, notable differences exist between both. This is because nonprofits have their own specific rules, regulations, and reporting requirements. For example, no part of a non-profit organization’s income is distributed to its members, directors, or officers. Non-profits are also usually tax-exempt in the U.S. Examples of non-profit organizations include religious organizations, social advocacy groups, public charities, and foundations. 

One benefit of having a good accounting framework is that it makes file sharing for nonprofits a fairly easy task since all files to be shared would have been recorded accurately. In addition, by taking advantage of cloud storage for nonprofits, you ensure that all your documents are safe and can be easily retrieved when necessary.

Cloud Storage for 4 Important Financial Statements of Nonprofits Accounting

Document management for nonprofits includes the preparation and storage of financial statements for use whenever needed, as required by law. As noted above, cloud storage for nonprofits is desirable since it can help prevent these important documents from getting lost or being corrupted. Financial statements are important for non-profits because they indicate their level of transparency and accountability.

Additionally, nonprofits need financial statements to source funds, including grants, and other kinds of assistance. File sharing for non-profits also becomes more meaningful when accurately prepared files such are financial statements are shared.

Qbox Simplifies QuickBooks File Sharing for Nonprofits

Qbox is designed to work as simply as possible while ensuring smooth and secure file sharing for nonprofits (more on security later). Here are the steps to follow:

Sign Up for a Qbox Account

The first step to integrating your nonprofit's QuickBooks  files with Qbox is to sign up for a Qbox account.. Next, create sync folders, and invite other users to share the folders. The Qbox client program will subsequently be downloaded and installed on your Windows desktop. After the download comes the creation of the necessary folders in the directory path which you select.

Invited users without a Qbox account will get an email invite that includes a link to sign up, download, and install Qbox. Shared users will not incur any expense for their account.

Copy Your QuickBooks and Other Files

With the first step over, all users will now be able to copy their QuickBooks and other file types (including MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Access files) into a sync folder. Initially, the files will be synced ‘up’ to the Qbox cloud server before being synced ‘down’ to the computers of shared users.

Start Collaborating

Collaborations begin after the second step. Congratulations! You’re about to experience simple and affordable file sharing for nonprofits like never before. Qbox is designed to support ‘active’ conflict-free collaboration. If you’re one of the users in your nonprofit, opening a file in its supporting application is simple. Just double-click on the file in Qbox Explorer.

Qbox Security

The Qbox file sharing and collaboration application is not only used in nonprofit document management but also by professionals in finance, law, education, real estate, retail, and other industries to share mission-critical desktop application files and collaborate in real time. Qbox values its clients and thus deploys the most up-to-date physical, information, and application security measures to secure the client data. This is to make sure that user's important information/data is not lost, changed, corrupted, or compromised, in addition, the very latest security best practices are integrated into every aspect of product design, development, testing, and deployment. In a nutshell, you can have absolute trust in CoralTree’s efforts to ensure secure file sharing and cloud storage for nonprofits and other organizations.

In coming up with Qbox security features, the vast experience of CoralTree’s founders and engineers has been key. This experience includes helping to build highly secure and reliable systems for Fortune 500 companies. Added to that is the company’s adoption of the latest Web 2.0 secure development and testing techniques.

Physical Security

These are the security and control measures designed to ensure that only those authorized are allowed physical access to the hardware that helps power Qbox, or the hardware used for data storage. Qbox stores all of its data in Amazon data centers. These centers are compliant with PCI DSS 1, ISO 27001, SOC 1 and several other security standards.

Additionally, all Qbox servers secured in Amazon have 247 secured access, video surveillance, and security alarms. Every physical access to the servers undergoes an audit. Such access is only reserved for authorized Amazon staff who have been subjected to extensive background checks and relevant security training. Cloud storage for nonprofits has never been more secure!

Information Security

Qbox information security has to do with those techniques and procedures put in place to make sure that viewing the data in the Qbox app is exclusive to only authorized personnel. It also helps prevent data loss or corruption. With, Qbox, be confident that unauthorized or unscrupulous individuals will never access the confidential application data of your non-profit. This is the case whether the data is transiting over the Internet or at rest inside the data centers.

To protect data in motion, all communication between the user’s browser and the Qbox servers happens over HTTPS, using 256-bit SSL encryption. The implication of this is that it is impossible to intercept and view the data as is the case in a ‘man in the middle’ attack. Qbox also incorporates Premium SSL Certificates, meaning your non-profit will get the highest possible security for modern browser-based applications.

To protect the data at rest, data centers that house Qbox databases have multiple levels of secure firewalls. Only X.509 certificates will enable access to the servers (password access is not possible). These X.509 certificates are the privilege of very few authorized CoralTree employees. Granting these employees server access is primarily for the purpose of performing routine maintenance and backup.

Lastly, to ensure the most effective cloud storage for nonprofits and others, Qbox databases are replicated in real-time. The databases are also regularly backed up to guard against the loss or corruption of application data due to hardware failures, or natural disasters.

Application Security

The Qbox application security helps ensure that unauthorized users lack the power to compromise the program via techniques such as XSS, CSRF, SQL Injection, session hijacking, and others. Only authorized users can access the data.

In partnership with WhiteHat Security, an industry leader, the Qbox web application is put through daily scans and periodic penetration testing in order to detect security attacks and other vulnerabilities. The WhiteHat Security mechanism identifies and reports any vulnerability. Any reported incidents are promptly fixed and retested.

As part of its reliance on efficient cloud storage for nonprofits and other clients, Qbox ensures that critical information/data is not persistently stored either on a user’s desktop or in browser cookies. It also encrypts user passwords before storing them in the Qbox database. However, Qbox does not store the credit card information users provide when paying their bills on its database. They are rather sent directly to the BrainTree payment gateway where they are stored and processed.

Every user must pass through authentication formalities before they can access the Qbox web application to operate for administrative reasons. After this procedure, they will be able to view or modify only data they are authorized to access. The Qbox client program running on a user’s computer only has access to folders and files set up by or shared with the user. Only an account owner or their team members can initiate the sharing of a folder and files in it. These team members must be on the same private email domain as the owner. The security measures described above are facilitated by the role-based access control feature of Qbox.

The Qbox ‘File Lock’ feature ensures that only one user with the lock can make changes to a file. After the changes, the user can then close the file to initiate a sync and release the lock. If you’re a user without the file lock, you can only view the files. Any changes you make will not be synced. The easy-to-use file lock mechanism helps protect the changes made by a shared user while preventing the creation of conflicting copies of the same files.

Wrapping Up

Non-profit organizations play a crucial role in ensuring socio-economic welfare, especially for the less privileged. Because they deal with money, nonprofits are legally required to prepare financial statements and engage in other accounting practices. This can imply constant file sharing for nonprofits. It also means that cloud storage for non-profits is a necessity.

File sharing for non-profits is made easy by Qbox, CoralTree’s simple-to-use practice management software for bookkeepers, accountants and other professionals. Qbox offers comprehensive physical, information, and application security of non-profit (and other) user data, while still enabling users to share QuickBooks and other files as well as perform other operations more efficiently over the Internet, saving them both money and time. It is a must-have for any effective document management system for non-profit organizations.  And at just $15 per month, Qbox ranks among the most affordable products of its kind on the market.

Get a 30-day free trial period by signing up today as a new Qbox user!