Frequently asked questions

Any high-stakes paper trail. PaperlessZen is a general document management system, and advancement teams are where we started, so gift agreements are our most developed use case. The same intake, search, automation, approval, and retention tools handle contracts and MOUs, governance and board records, and compliance files. If it matters, needs to be found later, and can't be lost, it belongs here.

No. Point us at the boxes or the drive and PaperlessZen handles the reading and filing. If you already have a scanning vendor or a multifunction scanner, documents can email straight in. Most teams start by sending a pilot batch and watching it become searchable the same week.

Every page is read with optical character recognition, so the full text is searchable, not just the file name. Ask a plain-language question and PaperlessZen answers from your own documents, with a link to the exact page it drew from. Answers come only from your archive, never invented and never from the open internet.

Your documents stay yours, in your own cloud. PaperlessZen is deployed into your institution's cloud subscription, so your documents never leave your environment. Access is role-based, every view and download is recorded in an audit trail, and permanent records are locked so nothing is quietly deleted. Who sees what is configurable down to the folder, and single sign-on is on the near-term roadmap.

You do. We provide the product and deploy it into your institution's own cloud subscription, so your documents live on infrastructure you already own and govern. Microsoft Azure is our preferred and most developed platform, and we can work with your team on AWS, Google Cloud, or another provider you already run. Hosting costs stay on your existing cloud bill.

Nothing walks out the door. The relationship history captured in agreements, side letters, and obligations lives in the institution's archive, not a personal inbox. Whoever picks up the relationship next arrives already knowing the donor.

Yes. Reporting dates, naming terms, and pledge schedules are pulled from the text of each agreement and tracked, with reminders before anything comes due. You see what the active terms owe donors without reading every document again.

On the Advancement and Institution plans, PaperlessZen embeds a "documents on this record" panel inside Dynamics 365, so a constituent's agreements are one click from their CRM record. Other integrations are available on request.

Days, not months. There is no data-entry project and no long implementation. Most teams send a pilot batch, a single box or one donor's file, and watch it become searchable the same week. You widen from there at whatever pace fits your staffing.

Every quote is two numbers: a one-time setup fee that covers deploying PaperlessZen into your cloud and digitizing your backlog, and an annual subscription scaled to your archive rather than your headcount. No per-seat charges. PaperlessZen is in early beta, and pricing reflects that, so the fastest way to get current numbers for your size and use case is to book a demo. We would rather quote you something real than post a figure that does not fit your situation.

Yes, in development now. PaperlessZen Desktop is a Windows capture app that watches the folders your scanners and copiers write to, reads every page on the machine itself, and makes documents searchable before anything uploads. The single-user edition, Desktop Lite, is free forever, with no account and no cloud. When a team connects it to a PaperlessZen workspace, the app is included, never charged per seat. Join the early access list to hear when builds open.

Typed and printed text reads reliably, including decades-old documents, because every page is processed with optical character recognition. Handwriting and poor scans are harder, and we are honest about that. Where the text is unclear, the original page is always kept and viewable, so nothing is lost even when the reading is imperfect.

They are kept exactly as they arrived. PaperlessZen reads, classifies, and tracks obligations alongside a document, never by altering it. Earlier versions are retained, so you always have the source of record, not just a processed copy.

Yes, and the exit is unusually clean, because your archive already lives in your own cloud subscription. The documents are physically yours from day one. You can download them, and we will help you export your archive if you ever decide to move on. We want to earn your business by being useful, not by holding your files hostage.

We started with advancement teams at universities, healthcare foundations, and cultural institutions, because their gift agreement and stewardship work is where the pain is sharpest. The same system fits nonprofits, foundations, associations, and any team responsible for high-stakes agreements that have to be found and honored years later.

Yes. External sharing uses a single-use token that resolves to a short-lived download link, and you can revoke any share immediately. A link that made sense last week can be shut off the moment it should not work anymore.

Records can be locked to a retention schedule so they live exactly as long as your policy requires, and placed under a legal hold that freezes them in place when a matter demands it. Both override deletion, and every change is permission-gated and recorded in the audit trail.