A document store that knows what it’s holding
Folders, versions and a recycle bin — plus the parts most stores skip: offline auto-classification, row-level access control, retention and legal hold, ranked full-text search and a signature chain. Part of the Cloud edition.
Library, versions, bin
A folder tree beside a document grid with upload, preview, tags, favourites and an inline detail panel. Check-in bumps a monotonic version number, and a field-level metadata diff between two snapshots feeds the version-history and audit panel. Deleted documents go to a recycle bin rather than away. Bulk move, tag, export and delete run atomically server-side over whatever you have selected.
It classifies itself, offline
Drop a file and a deterministic labeller scores the file name and extracted text against keyword and regex signals for each known document type, returning the best match with a 0–100 confidence, the signals that actually fired, and suggested tags — so the screen can explain itself. Digital PDFs, Word, Excel, CSV and plain text are read directly for their content; this is the AI-off path and it is always available. Duplicate detection sits next to it, and summarise / ask-this-document appear when you turn AI on.
Row-level access, not just a module toggle
The module permission decides whether you reach the library at all; a pure resolver then decides each document. Effective permission is the most-permissive union of the RBAC baseline filtered by a confidentiality floor (public, internal, restricted, confidential), owner-or-admin full control, and any explicit grant — to a user or a role, at document or folder scope — across view, download, edit, share and delete. Share links carry an expiry, a download cap and a watermark flag, and every link is evaluated to a stated reason: ok, revoked, expired or exhausted.
Records, retention and signature
Retention policies drive a worklist of the documents that are review-due or disposal-due, and each document has its own lifecycle controls — check-out and check-in, a review workflow, legal hold and disposal. Signature requests walk pending → sent → signed / declined / voided with a single-use signing link for an external signer, and the hash of the content that was signed is pinned so a later version change is detectable.
Find it, template it, write it down
Search is ranked server-side over a full-text index with metadata filters and per-user saved and recent searches, alongside store analytics — totals, storage, and breakdowns by type, status and confidentiality. Templates are mustache-merge bodies with a preview that fills the {{merge}} fields and can persist the result straight into the store. A knowledge base holds SOP articles with categories, tags, markdown, pin and published/draft/archived states, and threaded comments with @mentions notify the person you named.
What’s included
- Folder tree, upload, preview, tags & favourites
- Check-in versioning with a field-level metadata diff
- Recycle bin + atomic bulk move / tag / export / delete
- Deterministic offline classification with confidence & fired signals
- Direct text extraction from PDF, Word, Excel, CSV & text files
- Confidentiality floor + per-document and per-folder ACL grants
- Share links with expiry, download cap & a stated validity reason
- Retention policies, review workflow, legal hold & disposal
- e-Signature requests with a pinned content hash and status chain
- Ranked full-text search, saved searches & content-store analytics
- Mustache-merge templates, an SOP knowledge base & @mention comments
Frequently asked
Is the classifier AI?
It’s a deterministic scorer — keyword and regex signals per document type, returning a confidence and the exact signals that fired. It runs offline and is always on. The AI layer only refines or overrides a low-confidence result when you enable it.
Can I hide a document without changing someone’s role?
Yes. A confidentiality floor plus explicit grants at document or folder scope give you row-level control the module permission can’t express. The resolver that combines them is a pure function and unit-tested, and the server enforces its result rather than the screen.
Is the e-signature legally a DSC?
No. What ships is an in-app signature request — a single-use signing link, a typed or drawn signature, a status chain and the hash of the version that was signed. Integration with a licensed DSC or eSign gateway is a separate, configurable provider seam rather than something switched on by default.
Does it run in the offline desktop edition?
No — the document management system is part of the Cloud edition, under its own Documents group in the browser app. Retention policies, the review-due and disposal-due worklist, and legal hold all live there too.
What exactly is included in Documents · Cloud edition?
folder tree, upload, preview, tags & favourites, check-in versioning with a field-level metadata diff, recycle bin + atomic bulk move / tag / export / delete, deterministic offline classification with confidence & fired signals, direct text extraction from PDF, Word, Excel, CSV & text files and confidentiality floor + per-document and per-folder ACL grants, and 5 more. Every item on that list is a working screen you can open in the trial rather than a capability described in the abstract.
How is documents · cloud edition handled differently here?
It rests on library, versions, bin, it classifies itself, offline, row-level access, not just a module toggle, records, retention and signature and find it, template it, write it down. The distinction that matters is that these are structural rather than cosmetic — the behaviour is built into how records are posted, not layered on as a report you have to remember to run.
Does Documents · Cloud edition post to the real books?
Yes, and that is the whole reason it lives in this product rather than beside it. What library, versions, bin records lands in the same posted double-entry ledger the Trial Balance, P&L and GST returns are built from — so there is no second set of documents · cloud edition numbers to reconcile against the first.
How does Documents · Cloud edition affect my GST?
It feeds it directly rather than sitting alongside it. CGST/SGST and IGST are split from HSN or SAC and place of supply as each document is raised, so whatever documents · cloud edition produces is already correct when GSTR-1, 3B and 2B reconciliation are drawn off the same books. The return matches the accounts because it was never a separate exercise.
Does Documents · Cloud edition cost extra?
No. Documents · Cloud edition is part of the accounting core rather than a paid add-on, so it classifies itself, offline is there on the entry tier exactly as it is on the highest one. What the tiers change is reach and depth — devices, multi-branch and multi-warehouse reporting, and whether the conversational AI copilots are switched on.
Can I try Documents · Cloud edition before committing?
Yes — 14 days, no card. Test documents · cloud edition against your own masters and your own transactions rather than sample data: the questions worth answering here are about your business's edge cases, and a demo dataset is built not to have any.