Archiving Incoming and Outgoing Correspondence: A Simple System for Company Letters and Documents

Archiving incoming and outgoing correspondence electronically means every letter or document that enters or leaves your company is scanned or saved as a file, labeled with its type and owner, and made searchable by any word or number written inside it. You don't need a complex records system or a dedicated clerk for this. You need one routine that everyone follows, and document archiving software that actually reads what you put into it. This guide walks through the routine and shows how Thakira handles each step.

Why correspondence gets lost

The problem usually isn't volume. It's that everything is scattered. The original letter from the bank sits in a manager's drawer, a photo of it lives in a WhatsApp chat, and the scanned copy is saved on the front-desk computer under a name like “scan_0042.” A year later someone needs it, and the search starts from zero.

Electronic archiving fixes this with three things: one place for all correspondence, one consistent way to label it, and search that reaches the text inside each file, not just its name. For the bigger picture, see our guide to electronic archiving.

What document archiving software should do for your mail

Before you choose a tool for your letters, check that it covers the basics:

• Easy capture: from your scanner, your phone and WhatsApp downloads, without moving every file by hand.
• Clear labeling: document type, owner and date, plus an expiry date where there is one.
• Full-text search: including scanned letters, in Arabic and English.
• Confidentiality and permissions: not every employee needs to see every letter.
• Protection against loss: backups, plus a recycle bin you can restore from.

Incoming mail: from scanner to archive in one step

In Thakira, everything starts in the Inbox. Drag in a file or an entire folder, and Thakira reads it and suggests the document type, its owner and its expiry date. You accept the suggestion or adjust it. To cut down on daily handling:

• A watched scanner folder: set your scanner to save there, and every scanned letter lands in the Inbox.
• A watched WhatsApp downloads folder: documents that reach you on WhatsApp are picked up too.
• Phone capture: snap a letter with your phone via a QR code.
• Many formats: PDF, images, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and email files.
• Duplicate detection: Thakira flags it when the same letter arrives twice.

Every document is linked to its owner: the company itself, a branch or an employee. The parties you deal with, such as suppliers, customers, banks and government agencies, have their own section in Thakira that tracks what you owe them and what they owe you.

Thakira comes with ready-made document types, and you can add your own. If you want correspondence kept apart from licenses and contracts, add two types such as “Incoming letter” and “Outgoing letter.”

Outgoing mail: company letters and the company pack

The other half of correspondence is what leaves the company. Here Thakira helps in two practical ways:

• Ready-made letters: introduction letters and experience certificates with your logo and stamp, kept in the employee's file alongside their documents.
• The company pack: a single PDF of your company documents, ready for the bank or a tender, instead of collecting them page by page.

For outgoing letters you write in another program, save the final signed copy in Thakira like any other document, under your “Outgoing letter” type. If the letter carries a reference number, a search will find it, because Thakira reads the text of the document itself.

Search: type what you remember

An archive proves its worth the day you search it. In Thakira, you type the way you talk, such as “branch lease contract” or “payroll account IBAN,” and the document you need appears with the word highlighted on the page. Search tools include:

• Arabic and English OCR together, even inside scanned PDFs
• Automatic extraction of IBANs, VAT numbers, commercial registration numbers, ID numbers and amounts
• Gregorian and Hijri dates
• Quick search from anywhere in Windows

OCR runs on your own computer using the built-in Windows engine, so no letter is uploaded to the internet to be read.

Confidentiality, permissions and sync

Some correspondence shouldn't be open to everyone: payroll letters, warning letters and contracts, for example. Thakira gives you:

• Confidential documents, with 21 permissions and 4 ready-made roles that control what each employee sees
• Auto-lock when you step away
• A recycle bin with restore
• Encrypted backups protected by a 24-character key

If mail arrives at more than one office, the Company Edition syncs devices over the office network, an encrypted cloud folder or a USB drive. The main device approves every new device and decides what it receives.

A simple routine to start this week

• List your correspondence types and add any that are missing.
• Set your scanner to save into the watched folder.
• Bring in the old archive in stages: drag a whole folder into the Inbox and review the suggestions.
• Set permissions before staff start adding documents.
• Keep one rule: no letter is sent out or put in a drawer until it's in the archive.

To organize the rest of your company paperwork the same way, read our article on building a company documents archive.

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between document archiving software and saving files in folders?
A folder only knows a file's name. Archiving software reads the text inside each file, labels it and links it to its owner, so you can find it by any word or number it contains.

Can Thakira archive incoming and outgoing correspondence?
Thakira captures, labels and searches incoming documents, and it issues introduction letters and experience certificates with your logo and stamp. For any other outgoing letter, you store the signed copy in it like any other document.

Can it search inside scanned letters?
Yes. It reads text in images and scanned PDFs in Arabic and English together, and it highlights the match on the page.

Are my letters uploaded to the internet?
No. OCR runs on your computer, and no document leaves it unless you choose to sync through your encrypted cloud folder.

The bottom line

A working correspondence system is simple: one place, consistent labels, and search that reaches inside every letter. Start with today's incoming mail, then bring in the old archive in stages. To see how this works in practice, take a look at Thakira and the screenshots from inside the app.