Filing · Chapter 8

How nexpaper proposes fields

So that something is filled in already in the inbox, nexpaper asks several sources in turn, from the most reliable to the least. They are e-invoices, your rules, earlier documents of the same sender, the text of the letter and, if you set one up, an AI. There is no AI out of the box, and nexpaper does well without one. Proposals are only ever proposals: what gets filed is what you confirm.

Rules

A rule says: if a document looks like this, enter that. Most rules come into being on the side in the inbox, when you tap “Remember as a rule” at “Always like this?”. You can also create them by hand.

1. Find the card “Rules”

   Whoever manages a vault finds it at the bottom of the page “Vaults”. The operator has the same card under “Settings”, tab “Storage”, too, for rules that apply to the whole server.

2. Tap “Rule” and choose the condition

   After “If” you choose what the rule looks at: “Sender”, “Text”, “Kind”, “Source” or “Amount”. Then comes “is” or “contains”, with amounts “over” or “under”, and the value, “Wiesental”, say. nexpaper compares words as plain text, never as a pattern.

3. Choose what follows

   After “then” you choose what gets set: “Vault”, “Kind”, “Tag”, “Sender” or “Title”. For the title you can put in the fields of the document, {sender}, {kind}, {date}, {month}, {year} and {amount}. “Electricity {month} {year}” becomes, for example, “Electricity October 2026”.

4. Choose “Applies to” and tap “Create rule”

   Where several vaults come into question, “Applies to” says in which one the rule takes effect. Then “Create rule”.

The list shows the rules in the order nexpaper checks them. With the small arrows you change it, a switch (“Rule on or off”) turns a rule off without deleting it, and “Applied 3 times” shows how often it has worked. Rules apply to new documents, not retroactively. A rule also moves a document only to a vault the uploading person may file in. Otherwise their default stays. A rule for the whole server never reaches into another person's personal vault.

Rules

“As last time”

Without you creating anything, nexpaper remembers how you filed the documents of a sender. If a new document carries the same IBAN, the same VAT number, the same customer number or the same letterhead as one you have already filed, nexpaper proposes its sender, kind and tags. That is not machine learning, just this comparison. The fields carry the origin “as last time”.

What nexpaper reads from the text

• Date. The date next to a word like “invoice date” counts, otherwise the first one that looks plausible.
• Due date. It is taken only if a word such as “due” or “payable by” stands before it.
• Amount. After “total”, “sum” or similar, otherwise the largest amount with a currency. nexpaper never takes net and tax lines. Euro, US dollar, Swiss franc and pound are recognised.
• Title. Without an AI it comes from the file name or the subject of the mail. For e-invoices it is “Invoice” or “Credit note” with the number. A rule can overwrite it with a pattern.

This works in German and in English. Figures from e-invoices are more exact than anything nexpaper can read from text, because they come from the data of the invoice. What that looks like is on the page Features.

Setting up an AI

An AI helps where rules and text know nothing: it proposes title, sender, kind, date and amount. Here too only what a person confirms is filed. It is the operator's business and applies to everybody.

1. Choose the service

   Under “Settings”, tab “AI”, in the card “AI proposals in the inbox” there are four choices. “No AI” is the default. “Local model” is a service in your own network, with Ollama for instance, where the recognised text never leaves your network. “OpenAI compatible” is a service on the internet that speaks the OpenAI interface. The fourth is a service that speaks the Messages interface.

2. Enter address, key and model

   Depending on the kind you enter the “Address”, the “API key” and the “Model”. Ollama needs no key. With “Fetch models” nexpaper gets the list of the service's models.

3. “Save and try it”

   nexpaper saves the entries and puts a test question to the model without the content of any document. The key is sealed and never shown again.

What goes out and how to limit it

• Text only, no image. What goes to the AI is the recognised text of the first two pages of a new document, plus the list of kinds. No image, no file, no account name, no vault. No document goes to the AI as long as it is not set up.
• Leave out personal vaults. The switch is on out of the box. Whatever lands in a personal vault never goes to a model then. There, only rules apply.
• Daily limit. “AI requests per day” is 200 out of the box for the whole server, so that a big delivery does not send every document to a paid service. Once the limit is reached, rules and reading go on, and only the AI pauses until the next day. 0 means no limit.
• Everybody can opt out. Under “My account”, tab “AI”, anybody switches off “AI proposals for my documents” for themselves. The operator can also take the AI away from single accounts: the list of accounts has “AI allowed”.