Paper Trail, the Johannesburg based enterprise content management provider, is drawing attention this September to the part of its platform that organisations tend to think about last and need most: the rules that govern how a record is kept, who may open it, and when it may finally be destroyed. As South African businesses move through the second half of the financial year and start preparing files for audit and review, the company is pointing to its Records Management module and its permission structures as the practical answer to a problem that filing cabinets and shared network drives were never built to solve.

The company, which trades as Egis Software and operates from 138 Athol Street in Highlands North, has spent two decades building document and workflow software for South African organisations. Its platform is described on its own site as enterprise content management with custom development services, and the emphasis this month falls on governance rather than capture. Scanning a document is the easy part. Knowing that the scanned document sits under a retention period, that only three named people can see it, and that it cannot be quietly deleted before its disposal date, is what turns a digital archive into a defensible one.

Retention and disposal handled as configuration, not custom code

Within the Records Management module, retention periods and disposal instructions are configured rather than coded. Organisations that already hold an approved file plan do not have to rebuild it inside the software. The existing plan can be imported in CSV format, which means the classification work an organisation has already done with its records manager or archivist is carried across intact instead of being retyped and reinterpreted.

The module also handles the declaration of records and the freezing of records. Declaring a record fixes it as an official record rather than a working document. Freezing prevents disposal while a matter is open, which is the situation most organisations find themselves in when a dispute, an investigation or an audit query touches a file that would otherwise have reached the end of its retention period. Disposal signoff is part of the same flow, so the decision to destroy is recorded rather than assumed.

Paper Trail states that it maintains electronic records in accordance with ICA and ISO standards, and that the module meets records management requirements as set out for government, aligning with the National Archives and Records Service framework. For public sector bodies and for the private companies that contract to them, that alignment is not a nice to have. It is the condition of doing the work.

Permissions that reach down to the index level

The second half of the September message concerns access. Paper Trail describes administrators as having absolute control over who may access documentation, with permissions applied at folder, document and index level. That last layer matters more than it sounds. Folder level control is common. Index level control means a person can be granted sight of a record set while specific fields within it stay closed, which is how a large organisation lets an operations team work with a file without exposing the sensitive detail attached to it.

Access can be granted, modified or withdrawn at any time, and the company describes the change as instant. Each authorised user has their identity authenticated at the point of log in. For organisations that have grown through acquisition, or that rely on contractors and third parties, the ability to close an account and have that closure take effect immediately is the difference between a controlled environment and a hopeful one.

Signing sits alongside the permission model. Paper Trail Sign supports ordinary, digital, biometric and advanced electronic signatures, and the company states that signature compliance is in terms of both the ECT Act and POPI. Documents that are signed inside the platform stay inside the same repository, under the same retention rules and the same permission structure, instead of leaving the system as email attachments that nobody can account for six months later.

Capture, workflow and the record that results

Good governance depends on a complete archive, and the capture side of the platform feeds it. Paper Trail automates bulk and online capture, applies image enhancement and full page or zonal optical character recognition, and supports form and barcode recognition with automated or manual page separation. The output is fully text searchable scanned PDF images, which means a record subject to a retention rule can still be found on its content rather than on someone remembering the folder it went into.

Routing is rule based. The platform allows organisations to create rule based workflows for bespoke document handling and escalation procedures, with documents routed automatically to users or to external systems, designed through a graphical workflow designer and managed from an administration console. Paper Trail describes the effect as saving hundreds of working hours through process automation and monitoring tasks across all business units, giving a clear view of processes.

Continuity is treated as a separate discipline. Paper Trail publishes two replication and disaster recovery approaches. The first is continuous two way replication between a master and a slave server, both running the application, which gives the shortest possible downtime and allows disaster recovery testing without touching production, at the cost of two full licences and a more involved configuration. The second is a cold standby system that replicates the primary file store to a remote write once, read many repository, supports Amazon S3 and UNC path file stores, and requires only a server licence charged as a monthly rental. The company is explicit that either option belongs alongside a sound data backup strategy rather than in place of one.

Where the records live in the wider platform

The governance layer is not a standalone product. It sits under the same platform as LeaseHub for tenant and lease document handling, PeopleHub for employee lifecycle administration from recruitment through onboarding, CreditorsHub for accounts payable, TravelHub for supplier invoice collection and data extraction in the travel industry, Paper Trail Sign for signatures, and the contract management offering with its workflow, approvals, renewals, addendums, controlled access and reporting. A lease, an employment file and a supplier invoice all carry different retention obligations, and handling them in one document management system means those obligations are applied consistently rather than department by department.

Integration follows the same logic. The Paper Trail restful API allows any third party application to integrate with the platform, and plugins cover MS Office, MS Explorer and a desktop upload agent, with Microsoft Office and Outlook integration and mobile access on iOS and Android. Records created in a line of business system can be brought under the same controls without asking staff to change how they work.

The platform is offered in Small Business, Standard and Enterprise editions, with cloud and on premise deployment and distributed operation modes available, so the same governance model can be applied by an organisation of a few dozen users or by one running high availability across sites. Training and customised support is offered alongside, including 24/7 support through a help desk for critical systems.

Paper Trail lists among its clients IHS Property Management, Triton Fleet, CBI-Electric, iStore, Old Mutual, Fair Cape Dairies, the South African Reserve Bank, Tourvest Travel Services, PPC, Rosond, FirstRand Bank, FNB and Standard Bank, spanning property management, fleet, electrical, retail, dairy, travel, manufacturing, mining services and banking. Those are sectors where retention schedules, access restrictions and audit readiness are day to day operational requirements, not annual projects, and they are the environments the company's Document Management Software has been built around.

The broader shift the company is responding to is a familiar one in South Africa. Organisations digitised in a hurry over the past several years, often module by module, and ended up with content spread across scanners, mailboxes, network drives and cloud folders. Digitisation on its own produced volume. What it did not produce was governance. Bringing that content under a single set of retention rules, a single permission structure and a single audit ready repository is the work that remains, and it is the work that Document Management as a discipline exists to do.

Readers who want the detail on the Records Management module, the permission structure, the editions or the disaster recovery options can find it on the Paper Trail website at https://www.papertrail.co.za/.

About Paper Trail

Paper Trail is a South African enterprise content management and document management software provider based at 138 Athol Street, Highlands North, Johannesburg, trading as Egis Software. The company has been building document, workflow and records software for South African organisations for two decades, describing itself as smart software for smart businesses. Its platform covers bulk capture and optical character recognition, storage and retrieval, eForms, rule based workflow and routing, records management aligned to ICA and ISO standards, group email management, electronic and biometric signing under the ECT Act and POPI, business analytical reporting and a restful API for third party integration. Alongside the core platform it offers LeaseHub, PeopleHub, CreditorsHub, TravelHub, Paper Trail Sign and contract management, available in Small Business, Standard and Enterprise editions on cloud or on premise deployments, with training and 24/7 help desk support for critical systems.

Media Contact
Paper Trail
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +27 11 880 4411
Website: https://www.papertrail.co.za