Johannesburg, 24 Feb 2015
Picture the scene: after receiving no mail in your post box for months, you suddenly get a stack of unexpected bills, each of them more ominous than the last. The most recent is labelled 'final notice'.
It's a situation that's familiar to many of us who rely on the South African Post Office. What if there was a way of circumventing the service entirely and receiving all of your most important documents in one place?
I can't promise that post boxes will go the way of the public telephone booth any time soon - at least, not until everyone has a 3D printer in their homes and can print out physical packages. I can, however, promise a scenario where you'll never have to worry about losing an important document in the post, thanks to bold new innovation, says Gavin Dunlop, CEO, Actnet.
EDDBox is one such up-and-coming technology: a cloud-based document storage facility designed to be a replacement for your physical mail box. All you need is your e-mail address and a password, and you'll have access to a powerful and secure online document storage system.
Many people are becoming familiar with the convenience of online cloud solutions, but these lack the capabilities to function as a true online post box. EDDBox is unique in that it is designed specifically for bills, statements, invoices and other important electronic documents.
Unlike other storage cloud solutions, which require you to upload documents yourself, EDDBox supports incoming e-mails. By linking your e-mail account to your EDDBox account, your bills, invoices and statements get forwarded from your regular e-mail directly to your virtual post box. You will simply be notified when there is a new document waiting for you.
Because EDDBox works with rather than replaces your regular e-mail program, it can drop the excess and focus only on what counts. Only the attachments get forwarded to your EDDBox account, which means no more combing through spam and unimportant messaging. EDDBox does not utilise any of your computer's storage space, which simplifies the sharing of information.
EDDBox's powerful management features streamline organisation. You can set up rules so that any incoming documents automatically get sent to the correct folders, so you never struggle to find an important document again. You could, for example, easily set up a folder dedicated entirely to your City of Johannesburg account, and receive your water and electricity bills all in a single location.
Those are just the basics of what EDDBox's management features allow you to do. The solution includes powerful customisation features. For example, you could automatically store FICA docs, an ID copy, proof of address and last three bank statements, and send them through to someone at the click of a button.
Cloud solutions are revolutionising the way South Africans send and receive electronic documents, and customisable solutions like EDDBox demonstrate the full capability of what it can do. South Africans could soon have the power over mail back in their own hands.
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