Stop chasing documents over email

Droplana is a client document portal for professional service businesses. For accounting and bookkeeping firms, that means one private, persistent portal per client for collecting source documents and delivering finished work - two-way exchange, no client account.

Why document collection still breaks over email

If you run an accounting or tax practice, this pattern is familiar:

• You send a document request or checklist. The client fills in a PDF, re-saves it something_final_v3.pdf, and emails it back.
• They attach one document to one email, another to a second, more to a third - three days apart.
• You email a completed VAT or TAX return or set of annual accounts. They forward it internally. Three weeks later they can't find it.
• Google Drive folders get shared, then orphaned when a client changes email addresses.

Multiply this across 40 or 100 clients around a VAT or TAX deadline or year-end close and it becomes a serious operational problem. Droplana collapses the document exchange into a single, organized place per client. If you're still weighing whether a dedicated portal is worth it, our client portal guide walks through when it makes sense.

Document checklists for VAT and year-end intake

At the start of a VAT or TAX period or financial year, set up a document checklist on each client's portal - bank statements, sales invoices, purchase receipts, payroll records, whatever that reporting period needs. The client opens their portal and sees exactly what's still outstanding against that list, next to what they've already provided.

You're no longer tracking intake in a spreadsheet or by memory across dozens of clients. The checklist lives on the client's own portal, so the state of that one engagement - what's in, what's missing - is visible the moment you open it, without cross-referencing a separate tracker.

Why accounting professionals use Droplana

Organized intake, not email chaos

Each client has their own portal to upload everything. You see it all in one place, labeled by client - not buried in attachments across an inbox.

Delivery that doesn't rely on email

Completed work lands in the client's private portal. No more worrying about large PDF attachments, spam filters, or returns floating through email forever.

A clean record per client

For ongoing clients, the portal holds years of exchanges - organizers, source docs, returns, notes. When a client calls about last year's filing, you both know where to look.

Scales during peak season

A big intake surge is just each client using their portal. No special process changes. No overflowing inbox to triage.

Looks professional

Even a solo accountant can deliver the same clean, organized experience as a larger firm - without the overhead.

Common use cases

Accountants & tax advisors

VAT or TAX returns, annual accounts, source documents (invoices, bank statements, payroll records), year-end packages, correspondence.

Bookkeepers

Monthly close docs, financial statements, receipts, expense reports, recurring back-and-forth with the same clients every month.

Tax advisors (deadline-driven practices)

High-volume intake around VAT or TAX filing deadlines and annual accounts season - Droplana handles per-client document collection cleanly. After the deadline, portals stay for amendments and questions.

Payroll providers

Payroll run summaries, year-end payslips, onboarding docs - delivered per client without email.

Business managers & financial administrators

Ongoing document exchange with principals, expense reports, statements, and recurring financial packages.

GDPR and data protection for EU accounting practices

Accounting and tax work involves a high density of personal data: names, national identification numbers, income figures, bank account details, investment records. Under GDPR, this is personal data - and the firms that handle it are data controllers. When you use a third-party tool to exchange or store these documents, that tool is a processor, and GDPR Article 28 requires a signed Data Processing Agreement before any personal data is transferred.

Many practices still use US-hosted tools - email providers, cloud storage, file-sharing services - where client financial data may transit or rest outside the EU, with no DPA in place. That creates real compliance exposure.

How Droplana handles this

For the full breakdown of encryption, access controls, and audit logging, see our security setup.

• EU storage, end to end. All files and application data are stored on Hetzner in Germany, encrypted at rest, and never leave the EU. Brevo and Creem process only the metadata their function needs - email addresses and billing details, never file contents.
• DPA available. A Data Processing Agreement is available for all plans. It covers Droplana's role as processor, your role as controller, the categories of data processed, retention, sub-processors, and deletion procedures.
• EU company. Droplana is operated by Ubique d.o.o., registered in Croatia, European Union. Your contractual relationship is with an EU entity subject to EU law.
• EU-based sub-processors. Storage (Hetzner, Germany), mail delivery (Brevo, France), payments (Creem, Estonia). Each is an EU company; where any uses a subprocessor outside the EU/EEA, GDPR transfer safeguards (Standard Contractual Clauses) apply.

What this means in practice

Switching document exchange from email or a US-hosted Drive folder to Droplana eliminates a significant source of GDPR risk: personal financial data no longer transits through infrastructure outside EU jurisdiction, and you have a proper processor relationship with a signed DPA.

For practices with additional sectoral obligations (regulated auditors, certain fiduciary roles), confirm whether your specific requirements go beyond standard GDPR data processor obligations.

If you need the DPA or have data protection questions, get in touch.

Quick FAQ

Is Droplana GDPR compliant? Droplana is EU-hosted and GDPR-aligned: all data is stored in Germany (Hetzner), Droplana is operated by an EU company, and a DPA is available - required under GDPR Article 28 when engaging a processor. Whether your practice's overall handling of client data is compliant depends on more than any one tool.

Is a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) available? Yes. Available for all plans. Get in touch to sign one.

Can clients upload documents back to me? Yes. That's the main use case - they upload payslips, bank statements, tax documents, and anything else directly to their portal.

Do my clients need an account? No. They open their portal and verify their email once. Nothing to install or sign up for.

Is this a replacement for my tax or accounting software? No. Your software runs the work. Droplana is the client-facing document layer alongside it - files go both directions, with per-file comments for context.

Can I deliver prepared returns through Droplana? Yes. Upload to the client's portal and add a comment on the file noting it's ready. Nothing goes through email, and everything stays on EU-hosted infrastructure.

Can a client sign an engagement letter in Droplana? Yes. Droplana has in-browser PDF signing - type, draw, or upload a signature to sign right in the portal. It is not a certified, qualified electronic signature, so pair a dedicated tool with anything that has a hard legal signing requirement.

Check our simple pricing (or start free)

Storage levels and team seats scale with your plan.
Security, per-client encryption, isolation, in-browser PDF signing, and data export are the same on every plan.
No per-client fees. Tax calculated by Creem at checkout.

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