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[Prefer to listen? You can find a podcast version of this article here: E226: How to Share and Transmit Documents When Working With Financial Professionals] 

Many of us work with financial professionals, such as financial advisors, tax professionals, or other experts, who help us manage money.

In order to do their best work, these professionals often ask for certain documents that provide them with specific information. These documents can include things like:

• Tax returns
• Investment & retirement account statements
• Social security statements
• Insurance statements
• Payroll statements

Unfortunately, sharing these documents can sometimes be challenging, especially if they are on paper. But luckily, there are easy ways to share and transmit them to your financial professional.

PDFs are preferred

The ideal format for a document is a PDF. If your financial advisor or tax professional requests a document, send the PDF version.

This comes up frequently with tax returns. I've seen many occasions where I ask for a tax return, and instead of a PDF version, I get 11 blurry JPEG photos of the paper copy (more on how to avoid that later).

Every modern tax preparer should provide you with a PDF version of your tax return. If you don't have it, request it for your records. This is the version you should provide.

Investment account statements are often sent in the mail as paper copies. However, you should be able to log into your account portal and download PDF copies of your statements at any time.

The same applies to just about every other type of financial document. There is generally an online portal where you can download statements and documents in PDF format. This is the file you should send to your financial professionals when requested.

How to scan financial documents

While PDFs are preferred, sometimes it's not possible. Maybe you have a paper copy of a tax return, and your tax pro is unresponsive. Maybe you have 401(k) statements from an old job being mailed to you, and you have no idea how to log into their portal.

Or maybe you have estate planning documents that are signed and notarized with ink, and there are no electronic versions of the signed documents.

In these cases, you will need to scan the documents to get them into PDF format.

It may be tempting to simply take photos of every page and then send them, but this can be problematic. For one thing, it's less organized since every page is a unique photo, which can make it very difficult to sort out. Next, the file size can be large, making sending it a bit slow and clumsy. Finally, the image quality can be hit or miss, and these documents often end up dark, blurry, and hard to read (ask me how I know).

Instead of sending a slew of blurry JPEGs, use a scanning app to convert your documents into clear, readable PDFs.

There are several scanning apps for iPhone and Android. Since apps can change and evolve, your best bet is to search for "top phone scanning apps," and you'll find quite a few options.

If you just want a recommendation, I currently use Genius Scan. It's available for iPhone and Android, and the free version does everything you need.

Phone scanning apps make it easy to scan because you can simply hover your phone over each page of the document. The app will detect the edges and capture a clean snapshot automatically. If the document is multiple pages long, simply scan each page, and it will combine everything into one PDF.

Scanning apps also brighten the documents, ensuring that they show up clear and readable.

How to transmit documents

Now that you have your ducks in a row and have nice, clean PDFs of everything, how do you send documents to your financial professional?

The most important thing to remember is this: don't send sensitive information over email!

Email is inherently insecure and can be intercepted. Additionally, your messages generally get stored in a "Sent" folder, and that's the first place an intruder is going to look if they get access to your email.

Any good financial advisor or tax professional should use a secure portal or upload site that will allow you to securely upload financial documents. Always use this portal to send documents that contain sensitive information.

Sensitive information can include:

• Social security numbers
• Account numbers
• Bank account numbers
• Credit card numbers
• Detailed personal information

If your financial professional does not have a secure portal or if they ask you to email sensitive documents, this should be a red flag.

If you decide to continue working with them despite this security issue, there are some secure ways to send documents. A search for "send file securely" will uncover some tools you can use to send documents securely.

Practice good document management

So remember these rules when sharing financial documents with your financial professional:

• PDF is preferred
• Use a scanning app
• Always send documents securely (not through email)

This will make life easier for everyone and help keep your data secure.