We are floating in a data-driven world, where financial reports are the lifeblood of every organisation. They provide stakeholders with potent insights into the company’s financial records, financial health, performance, income, and spending. It also highlights the prospects of the company to existing and prospective stakeholders. We also need to keep in mind that these financial records are extremely sensitive, and their creation as well as their sharing are crucial. A data breach or unauthorised access to this sensitive financial information can have severe consequences, tainting trust and potentially leading the company to financial downfall. It becomes the prime task of corporate professionals and small business owners who need to share financial reports with their stakeholders securely, so a secure file or a password protect PDF is a must.
Why are Financial Reports Sacred?
Financial reports refer to an organisation’s financial statement that includes sensitive information, such as revenue figures, expenses, assets, liabilities, profit margin, debt levels, stock prices, and future prospects.
Imagine an unauthorised individual getting hold of your company’s private information. It is like stripping your company naked, with multiple consequences, such as:
1. Competitor’s Critique
The competitors can get hold of your leaked financial records, thereby, giving them access to valuable information about your business strategies, pricing models, revenue sources, and profitability. This could give them an unfair competitive edge in the industry.
2. Investor Inquisitiveness
Erosion of investors’ trust and confidence due to the leak of sensitive financial data could lead to a decline in stock prices and tarnish your organization’s reputation.
3. Regulatory Restrictions
There might be regulatory violations and restrictions due to data breaches which could result in incurring hefty fines, depending upon your industry and location.
How to secure your Financial Records?
There are several ways to be partaken to ensure the secure sharing of the financial reports:
1. Password Protected
Just like you put a password for your phone and laptop, password-protecting your PDFs adds a blanket layer of security. Anyone who wants access to the financial records PDF will need to have the correct password, significantly reducing the chances of unauthorized leaks into the sensitive information. Use online PDF readers like Adobe Acrobat, which offers robust password protection features, giving you to specify password complexity, and restructuring printing, copying, or editing of the document. You can open your financial records in Adobe, navigate to the ‘Protect’ menu and select ‘Encrypt with Password’. After this, you can set a strong password for your sensitive file using a combination of uppercase and lowercase. Further to enhance the security and privacy, it also provides options like ‘No Printing’ or ‘No Copying’. This prevents any unauthorised leaks into the financial records.
2. Encryption
Encryption plays the role of scrambling down the content of your financial record, which cannot be read by anyone but one who has the decryption key. This proves to be one of the highly secure methods that helps in keeping malicious users away. Adobe provides encryption under its ‘Protect’ menu with different variations based on the level of sencisitvity of your data. Adobe Acrobat Pro DC offers options like 256-bit AES encryption, which is a highly secured standard.There are also different levels of encryption strength, depending on the sensitivity of the document, which can be chosen by you.
3. Permission-Based Access
Now, there might be situations where you need to share your financial records with multiple stakeholders. In such circumstances, permission-based access allows you to define specific access levels for each of the recipients. Using this you can control who can view, edit, or print the document. Similarly, Adobe Acrobat allows you to define access levels such as – ‘Restrict editing and printing’ and ‘Restrict by Permssions.’ It also grants ‘View’ access to some recipients, ‘Comment’ or ‘Fill forms’ to others. This feature ensures that only authorized individuals get access to the full report according to their level of control.
4. Secure File Sharing Platform
Several secure file-sharing platforms have features designed specifically for exchanging and sharing sensitive documents. Several security measures are taken by these platforms, such as encryption, two-factor authentication, and access. This ensures the integrity of your data. You can use Adobe Acrobat’s ‘Encrpyt with Password’ feature within the platform itself, leveraging the integration of the two-factor authentication and access control, further ensuring the integrity.
5. Physical Delivery
There might be instances when the sensitivity level of your document is extremely high. In such a scenario, though not always viable, physical delivery of the report on a secure USB drive or encrypted hard drive could be performed. This ensures full authority and control over who has access to the document.
How to choose the best method?
The best method to approach securing your financial records depends upon the following factors:
1. Level of Sensitivity
A highly sensitive document will call for more robust security measures like password protection, encryption, and permission-based access control, as compared to a low sensitive document.
2. Recipient Number
This refers to how many shareholders are going to receive the financial record. For sharing it with a large group of shareholders, it is advisable to use secure file-sharing platforms to retain integrity and credibility.
3. Accessibility
To allow hassle-free yet authorized access to the financial records, you can use a password protection method. It offers a good balance between security and accessibility, allowing for seamless access to the financial records for authorized recipients.
It is paramount for companies to securely share their financial reports by implementing these strategies and adopting a security-conscious approach. Secure sharing fosters trust, builds credibility, protects your company’s private information, and advocates for your brand’s reputation. Remember, a malicious leak by an unauthorized recipient to your financial report, not only creates a tainted reputation in the industry but also, reduces the credibility of the company in the eyes of the existing and prospectus stakeholders.
Businesses in today’s world operate in an arena of breaches. Therefore, the security of your financial information should be on priority. By embracing different secure sharing strategies and leveraging powerful tools like Adobe Acrobat(secure PDF sharing), your financial records will be shared with confidence, imbibing trust within the community of your stakeholders, which will ensure the continued success of your business.
