DMS & Associates Rely on Email Archiving from Rackspace

Microsoft Exchange, Rackspace Archiving, Professional Services, Health Care, 10-50, Videos

As a “virtual CFO” for businesses nationwide, DMS & Associates allows businesses to focus on building their business and minimize administrative tasks with accounting, bookkeeping, and financial administrative services.

• Challenge
  Secure email service and email archiving service with easy administration from a single provider
• Solution
  Microsoft^® Exchange service with Rackspace Archiving
• Results
  Affordable, professional email service with the ability to search messages across the entire domain

Free Service Costs Security and Flexibility

DMS & Associates brings together a virtual workforce of experienced CPAs to provide clients nationwide with financial accounting services. All of their software and data are maintained on Rackspace Managed Hosting servers. “We are all digital, all paperless. Our software runs on your servers, and as paper documents come in, they are scanned, digitized, and saved to the server,” says Kimberlee Augustine, owner of DMS & Associates.

They made the same decision about email hosting that they made for application hosting–outsourcing. They had access to a branded email address provided by their web host, but “Trying to make changes was a nightmare; it was cumbersome, and no one used it,” according to Kimberlee. “So, we were primarily using Gmail. It was easy and free but it wasn’t secure enough. For us, losing an email isn’t just an inconvenience. With clients’ taxes and money at stake, it could be a legal nightmare.” Kimberlee was ready for Microsoft^® Exchange service but didn’t want to deal with the headache of managing it.

Due to the nature of their business, they needed more than just an email solution. “We needed a way to locate and produce email records fast in case of a ‘he said, she said’ dispute. Email stands as the record of what a client asked us to do or not do and could potentially carry significant liability. We can’t wait days to find an email; we need to be able to respond immediately.”

Furthermore, the previous solution didn’t support their work processes. Kimberlee’s assistant filters her email. Simple workflow management tasks, like sharing an inbox with her assistant, weren’t possible with the previous email solution. Kimberlee had to give her assistant her email password so that the assistant could physically log in to access her inbox.

DMS & Associates was looking for a professional, branded email address with hosted Microsoft Exchange service, and email archiving was a requirement.

Exchange with Archiving Meets the Need

Kimberlee didn’t have to look further than the company she trusts to host her applications and files – Rackspace. She asked her IT consultant to provide some recommendations and Rackspace made the short list. “We wanted to host with Rackspace because of the level of expertise, responsiveness, and professionalism we’ve experienced with the Rackspace Managed offering,” says Kimberlee. The tipping point for Kimberlee was our email archiving service.

“Archiving was an absolute requirement. We wanted to host our email and get archiving from the same vendor.” Rackspace Archiving allows them to search and view emails both to and from external and internal recipients. Many archiving solutions only archive email that leaves the domain, with no support for email sent between internal parties within the domain. Additionally, Rackspace Archiving allows them to search the entire pool of email in the organization. In a situation where the specific recipient isn’t clear, they can search all emails in minutes using metadata, body, or attachment text as search criteria.

Before signing up, she spoke with our sales representative on the phone. To allay her concerns about how the archiving service worked, her sales representative took extra time to explain exactly how the backups and archive work. Her email transition was seamless. “Being a non-technical person, I was amazed that it worked perfectly from the minute they flipped the switch,” Kimberlee explains.

Rackspace Provides Total IT Support

All of DMS & Associates’ email mailboxes live on Rackspace servers, along with their software and files. The new Rackspace Microsoft Exchange service gives her the ability to share her inbox, calendar, tasks, and notes. Now, Kimberlee’s assistant can access her entire mailbox without having to physically log into her mailbox.

With the added archiving service, Kimberlee never has to worry about not finding a critical email. “If we ever have a dispute or if a client accuses one of our CPAs of communicating something out of line with our philosophy, we have rock-solid proof of the actual communication,” says Kimberlee. She adds, “To a certain degree knowing that there is a permanent, tamper-proof record of all email communication works to keep everyone on their toes.”

Recently, she went to search for an email related to a client’s tax return. After asking the CPA to search their email inbox, to no avail, Kimberlee turned to her Rackspace Archiving service. From the Rackspace email Control Panel, she has one-click access to her email archive. “The email was actually in another CPA’s mailbox. Without the archive, I may have never found that email.”

Kimberlee has been so pleased with her service, she’s made her business’ goal to be “the Rackspace of our industry,” she says. She’s confident about recommending our service to her colleagues, but finds, “Most people who know about Rackspace are hesitant of your solutions due to price.” She helps evangelize the fact that the costs savings far outweigh monthly fees, which are more affordable than people think. Of her experience with Rackspace she shares, “Between the level of support and product reliability, Rackspace is phenomenal.”