Why look for an alternative
A shared Google Drive or Dropbox folder remains the most common reflex for centralising documents. It stores files, but the list of what is expected, from whom and by when does not exist there: it lives in emails or in the professional's memory. How subfolders are organised depends on each person, and nothing links a document to the exchange that prompted it.
What Google Drive and Dropbox do
A reliable storage space already familiar to most clients, convenient for dropping and finding files. The folder is often set up by the client, who then shares access with their professional: it is simple, and everyone keeps control of their own files.
How Kolinea differs
In Kolinea, a document is uploaded to the folder thread, next to the exchange that prompted it, and a "Documents" tab brings them all together. An expected document takes the form of a document request: the list of what is left to provide, with a status per document and an optional deadline, until everything is uploaded and accepted. Automatic reminders go out to the recipient. The client joins the folder through a personal link, without having to create or set up a shared folder themselves. At closing, everything stays readable, read-only, without moving to a paid plan, as long as the professional's space exists.
A property sale, sensitive documents, folders in series
An estate agent prepares a sale: diagnostic reports, title deed, the sellers' ID documents. In a shared folder, nobody knows what is missing until every subfolder has been opened. With the document request, the list is drawn up from the start (see the estate agent page).
A wealth management adviser gathers a client's documents, some of them highly sensitive. Document confidentiality makes it possible to reserve a document for the professional and their client, without showing it to the other participants (see the wealth management adviser page).
A firm that opens folders of the same type rebuilds the same tree every time. Folder templates prepare in advance what is expected, folder after folder.
When to stay with a shared folder
To store files that are already approved (an archive, templates), with no request to track and no deadline, a Drive or Dropbox folder is enough, and Kolinea is not a general storage space. If your client insists on their own shared folder, nothing stops you keeping it for heavy files and opening the Kolinea folder for tracking. It becomes useful as soon as you need to know who still has to upload what.
Related reading
- Document requests, to see what is missing without opening every subfolder
- Folder templates