Patent ID: 7383232

Claim:
A method for providing financial information of a client to an accountant over a communications network, comprising: receiving and storing, at a service provider computer, client financial information transmitted from a financial institution computer, wherein the client financial information includes financial information and one or more account numbers uniquely identifying the client financial information; receiving by the service provider an accountant identification data from an accountant computer; receiving at the financial institution computer a request from a client computer to generate a PIN; generating the PIN by the financial institution computer; transmitting the PIN to the client computer; transmitting the PIN from the client computer to the service provider computer; transmitting an identifier and an account code from the client computer to the accountant computer; authenticating the accountant by the service provider using the accountant identification data; receiving by the service provider the identifier and the account code from the accountant computer; comparing the PIN with the identifier, and the account code with the account identifier, and based on the comparison retrieving client financial information using the account code; and transmitting the client financial information to the accountant computer.