What to look for when comparing Virtual Data Rooms

You want to spend less time digging through documents, but you also need to make sure all the right people can access the right information. And on top of that, you need to close the deal as quickly as possible, but without overlooking anything.

Working on high-profile deals, whether they are mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, IPOs or fund buyouts, is exciting. But having to deal with the huge amounts of documentation that are necessary when doing an audit is not that exciting.

There is more information to share than ever and yet there is hardly any time because everyone wants to get to the end of the process as soon as possible.

Among other things, this is one of the main reasons why Virtual Data Rooms (VDR) or virtual data rooms (online platforms that allow multiple parties to store and share critical information securely) have become so popular in the last years.

However, with so many dataroom providers (as well as other cloud storage platform services), before committing to a provider it’s important to know what makes a good VDR. To make sure you choose the perfect data room, make sure it meets these 7 qualities:

1. Table of Contents

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   A Virtual Data Room must be easy to use

It seems obvious, right? However, many VDR providers complicate their software with complicated processes and features that you don’t really need. So when you go to choose a virtual dataroom, ask for a trial before committing and make sure that its operation is simple for both you and your team. You will save time… and money!

2. The perfect data room offers you a price structure that adapts just to what you need

A VDR provider typically charges by the megabytes (MB) of data used or by the number of pages that are stored. But you must have the flexibility to do both, depending on the project you’re working on.

If the documents you want to store in a VDR are primarily text-based (for example, spreadsheets or written reports), then it is better to pay for the MB of data, as the cost will be lower. If your documents contain heavy graphics and image files (such as patent schematics), you should ideally pay for the number of pages that are stored, as the file size will be much larger.

Similarly, it is important to decide if it is better to pay an unlimited number of people to have access to your VDR or if it is ideal to pay per user. And this is something that can vary greatly depending on the project since some need more staff and others less. For this reason, the perfect dataroom is the one that allows you to increase or reduce the number of users with access according to the needs of each audit.

3. A service committed to your needs that solves your life

“I love spending time learning how my data room works.” Have you ever heard someone say something like that? Of course not! Setting up a VDR quickly is critical to optimizing time. That is why it is important that your virtual dataroom offers you help with the configuration and uploading of documents. But not only that, but it should also offer you a 24/7 dedicated team, always ready to help you, even at night or during the weekend. Because the opportunities to close an operation do not understand waiting. And neither should you.

4. A completely secure Virtual Data Room

The information that is shared in any transactional deal is highly sensitive. So all VDRs must be impenetrable.
To do this, verify that your dataroom provider is ISO 27001, SSAE 16 and ISAE 3402 certified, the benchmark for high-quality security standards.
And of course, we recommend that you inform yourself about where their servers are located, and the reputation of the provider. Because when it comes to such important information, nothing should be taken for granted. The Virtual Data Room should be from a reputed brand such as Docurex.

5. Ability to control what each user sees

A good data room should allow you to control exactly what each user sees, whether it’s a large folder of documents or a single document in a large folder, but it should also give you the power to limit what people see. can do with those documents.

The best VDR providers come standard with the ability to see what people have done and are doing on your VDR, so your information stays private. This includes adding watermarks to documents or restricting who prints them. And it is that with a good dataroom, you have control.

6. A virtual data room that never leaves you out

Sometimes (just sometimes) technology fails, and in the case of bathrooms, one day a server may fail. However, the most reliable VDR providers will always offer you a second server installed, ideally in a different region than the first.

When choosing your provider, check that this is the case and, if it is, make sure that the second server continuously repeats the data so that it is automatically activated and up to date when the first server is down, so that it is not wasted or a single second of your valuable time.

7. A provider that gives you just what you want

Let’s face it… You couldn’t care less about VDRs, security certificates, or megabytes. You simply need to close trades quickly using a service that works perfectly.

Make sure your virtual data room provider understands this, or better yet, make sure they have experience being on your side of the table. Only then can you enjoy an excellent service that makes the heavy lifting seem easy and keeps things simple so you get exactly what you want: closing deals safely as quickly as possible.