Instanet Blog

As a real estate professional, do you find that the busiest time for buying and selling is when you are trying to take a vacation or are simply away from the office?  How many times have you been on the way out of town or at a personal event only to get a call from a client, cooperating agent, lender or closing officer requesting a document? When your files and documents are stored in the cloud with DocBox™, it can be easy to find and forward any documents they need. You can even leave the laptop at home and access your files from your Smartphone with DocBox2Go™.

Here are the top 5 reasons to move your files to online storage with DocBox and DocBox2Go:

1. Accessibility
   You can have 24/7/365 access to your most important documents through any Internet-enabled device. You can use a computer, SmartPhone or even your iPad or other notebook device.
2. Flexibility
   With DocBox, you have delivery options of email, fax and e-signing.  DocBox supports multiple document formats including PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, image files and even photos.
3. Sharing/Participating
   Offer access to your online transaction file content to  clients, cooperating agents, lenders, title attorneys or anyone else that want to grant access to your file details.  This saves you time, energy and cell phone minutes.
4. Longevity
   There's a saying that the internet is forever.  In this case, that’s a good thing.  Documents stored online are retained and available in the same place year after year after year.  No more back up files or searching "deep storage."  Simply login, do a keyword search and the file from five years ago is recalled immediately.  You can view your transaction history, actions taken, time and date stamps as well as who and what actions took place.
5. Differentiation
   Lots of real estate people talk about it, but only the most professional do something about it.  Now you can deliver the online access and support that clients and customers want.  Even when you're not available, your online content is.  You can even add branding to your account with personal photos and company logos to differentiate and distinguish yourself on all communication.

It is time to put the power of DocBox and DocBox2Go in the palm of your hand.  The internet and cloud computing has changed the dynamics of filling out forms, getting signatures and retaining required documents.  

So go ahead, plan that vacation knowing that you can access, review, deliver and manage the sale process all online and remotely with DocBox. To The Cloud!

DocBox is one of the most powerful technology tools an office, broker or agent can have. To learn more, visit www.InstanetSolutions.com or call 1-800-668-8768.

Did you know that you can now access all of your real estate forms and contracts directly from your iPad or other popular tablet devices such as the Xoom, PlayBook or any other Android-based tablet device?

Instanet Solutions announced the availability of a zero-footprint version of Instanet Forms™.

“As more real estate professionals migrate to tablet technologies, we saw the need to empower our users to be able to work with their forms and contracts using tablet devices,” stated Martin Scrocchi, President and CEO of Instanet Solutions. “Instanet Forms was originally released in 1998 and was the first web-based contract and forms management service, and is now the first service of its kind to enable users to be truly mobile when it comes to managing their forms.”

The zero-footprint version of Instanet Forms is available to all existing Instanet Forms and TransactionDesk™ users at no additional cost. Users simply login to their existing TransactionDesk or Instanet Forms account through their tablet browser and they will automatically be able to access the new version.

To learn more, visit www.InstanetSolutions.com or call 1-800-668-8768.

Now there's a big trend in real estate that occurring. It's office and agents that are going paperless. In addition to helping to save the environment, offices and agents can save real money, too.

Instanet Solutions has come up with an innovative Paperless Savings Calculator which shows just how much a real estate office can save. And it's really easy to use.

Users can simply put in their average transaction sides and the approximate number of pages per transaction (rough estimates are fine).

The calculator guides you through estimated printing, storage, staff time and other costs such as express mailing, paper shredding, etc.

When you're finished, you'll be able to see the total estimated amount of money you'll save in a year by going paperless, or at least reducing the amount of paper that travels through your office.

The reality is that most people don't want to print, file and store lots of paper files, and real estate transactions are known for sheer size of the paper trail.

Instead of all that paper, Instanet Solutions has a complete paperless solution that keeps documents electronic, and allows you to print things out if and when you need to. It's an electronic storage solution, DocBox™, allows you to store your most important documents "in the cloud" and retrieve them anywhere, anytime from any computer or Smartphone with Internet access.

Instanet Solutions also offers Authentisign™, a complete eSigning solution that is FHA-approved and ESIGN compliant, so in addition to paper, you can save money on gas and time trying to run all over town and coordinate schedules to get important documents signed.

So go paperless with Instanet Solutions. You'll not only be helping to save the planet, but you'll save money and your sanity as well.

To learn more, visit www.InstanetSolutions.com or call 1-800-668-8768.

This is a list of the top 10 tips for using TransactionDesk in your real estate practice, from our lead trainer Gregg Driscoll.

1. Work with online Transaction Files
   When you are ready to write a purchase contract or listing agreement, start a new transaction. A transaction is similar to the paper file you use today. It will save you a considerable amount of time because all the forms and contracts you add to the transaction file will be auto‐populated with the data you import or type into the transaction.
2. Create a Transaction Template
   To start online files faster and more consistently, create transaction templates.  Go to the Settings tab and then click on Transaction Templates. Templates offer the feature to pre-determine which forms, documents and tasks are associated to specific file types.  When files are started from Templates, the detail is quickly and automatically added.
3. Brand your Account with Company Logos and a Personal Photo 
   Upload photos and logos to brand yourself or your company with all outbound correspondence, such as Fax Back and InstanetFax cover sheets, as well as email messages and agent/office websites.  Your logos and photos with be branded in the “header” position of all email messages and fax cover sheets.
4. Create Quick Start Groups for Commonly Used Forms and Contracts
   You can create a Quick Start Group in just a minute or two. Go to the Settings tab and then click on Quick Start Groups. You will be able to create custom groups of forms and quickly add groups of forms to existing files. You can even automatically attach a group of forms to a specific transaction type.
5. Create a Share Group to share your Transaction Files with Others
   If you want to share access to common transaction files, simply share the transaction when you are setting up a file in the Transaction Wizard. You can also share a file later, by clicking on the Sharing link in the transaction overview screen. To set up sharing, just go to Settings»Sharing and create the "shares" for people with whom you’ll want to share transactions.
6. Create Clauses and input Standard Provisions into your Account 
   The Clause Editor allows you to paste commonly used verbiage into your Contracts and Forms. If you have any verbiage you write often or type into contracts, there is a better way to do it. You can add personal clauses to TransactionDesk and Instanet Forms and then paste those clauses right into a form or contract. Go to Settings>Clauses and add the clauses there. Write the clause in a word processor such as Microsoft Word (or even your email program) so you can spell‐check the clauses first.
7. Grant Participant Access to your Online Files 
   TransactionDesk offers features to grant online access to your clients, service providers and other agents.  When you create a new transaction and add contacts (buyers, sellers, etc.) to the transaction, you can choose to make that contact a transaction participant. You can then grant that person access to the specific items you want, such as certain forms, documents, contact information for certain parties, etc. Set expiration dates and receive notifications with the participant logs in to access your online file.
8. Download  and install the DocBox™ Print Driver
   Use the convenience of the DocBox Print Driver to quickly and easily access your online DocBox account and deliver or distribute received files and digital documents.  Upload received documents to your online files without the need to go through the clicks and steps to get logged into your online account. The DocBox Print Driver will take care of that for you. All you need to do is "print" and deliver.
9. Use FaxBack Cover and InstanetFax Coversheets:
   For every transaction you create, TransactionDesk will automatically add a fax back cover sheet to the transaction file. You can now email, fax or print (and then deliver) the faxback coversheet to anyone you expect to give you transaction-related documentation. When they fax back the documents, the received pages will be automatically filed in your TransactionDesk transaction file as an Adobe PDF. The document will also be emailed to you so you know the fax has been sent to you.
10. You Can Give Your Clients a PDF of all Transaction Documents
    At the end of the transaction you can create a single PDF of all the transaction file documents. TransactionDesk can create a PDF "package," a single PDF file made up of multiple files that you can deliver to your client by email or burning to a CD. Simply go the transaction and from the "I would like to" drop down menu select "Package Forms/Document," then click go and follow the prompts.

TransactionDesk is one of the most powerful technology tools an office, broker or agent can have. Use these tips to make your real estate practice run even smoother. To learn more, visit www.InstanetSolutions.com or call 1-800-668-8768.

If you're ramping up your real estate technology tools to make your practice run smoother, you should know about the single interface from Instanet Solutions.

With Instanet Solutions, you simply log into one dashboard from any internet connection, and you can start using any of the technology services that you subscribe to.

There's Instanet Forms, which offers online access to virtually any form you'll need in a real estate transaction in your state. It is also the first online real estate form that can be used on the iPad or other tablet device, including Xoom and Android devices.

TransactionDesk™ is a complete transaction management solution, that allows you to access and manage all your real estate forms, contracts, documents, calendars and contacts from any computer with Internet access, anywhere in the world.

Doc Box™ and DocBox2Go™ offers electronic storage and retrieval of your most important archived electronic files from any computer or Smartphone. It also includes Broker Compliance Manager, to make sure you have all of the completed forms and documents in one place, in the event of an audit.

Authentisign™ is the FHA-approved and ESIGN-compliant esigning solution that allows you to send important documents for eSignatures via the Internet. Now you don't have to travel across town and work around impossible schedules to get your critical documents signed.

With InstanetFax, you can email documents to a regular fax machine, or fax to an email account.

These technology tools put you at the cutting edge of real estate.

Best of all, because of Instanet Solutions' one interface design, you can access all of these services from one log-in screen, so you only have to learn one program once. And it's so easy to use that you'll be up and running in no time.

So why spend more time learning program after program when you can have it all with Instanet Solutions?

To learn more, visit www.InstanetSolutions.com or call 1-800-668-8768.