JOHANNESBURG, October 2026. PaperTrail, the electronic content management platform developed by Johannesburg-based Egis Software, is drawing attention to three parts of its Document Management Software that tend to matter most when work piles up: group email handling, electronic forms and rule-based document routing. With the final quarter under way and many South African organisations preparing for year-end closes, festive season shutdowns and the audits that follow in the new year, the way requests, invoices and approvals move through a business is under more pressure than at any other point in the calendar.
Most organisations do not lose time because a single document is hard to find. They lose it in the gaps between people: a client email that sits in a shared mailbox nobody owns, a paper form waiting for a signature from a manager who is out of the office, or an approval that has to be chased by phone. PaperTrail is built to close those gaps by bringing correspondence, data collection and workflow into the same secure repository where documents are stored.
Shared inboxes without the shared mailbox problem
The Group Email feature in PaperTrail is designed for teams that handle large volumes of customer email together. Emails are imported automatically from POP and IMAP compliant mail servers, including Microsoft Exchange and Lotus, and can then be distributed to team members for processing. This removes the familiar difficulty of managing group mailboxes, where several people read the same message and nobody is sure who has responded.
Replies are sent from within PaperTrail, so all correspondence on a matter is tracked together and automatically threaded under a single item. Email aliases can be set up to act as the starting point for a workflow, meaning a message arriving at a particular address can kick off a defined process rather than waiting for someone to notice it. A Microsoft add-in allows individual users to send emails from Outlook directly into PaperTrail, attach metadata to them and allocate them to specific users or groups. Users can choose whether to send the entire email or only its attachments.
For a finance team receiving supplier statements, a property team handling tenant queries, or a service desk answering client requests, that means each message has an owner, a history and a place in the record.
eForms that collect data and approvals in one step
Alongside email, PaperTrail offers electronic forms that collect data and gather approvals without paper. The eForms capability is intended to improve processing times, speed up approval cycles and reduce paperwork. Calculations and validations can be automated, which helps with tasks such as claims processing and keeps staff focused on work that needs human judgement.
Electronic forms can also offer a more secure alternative to paper filing, which is vulnerable to loss. PaperTrail supports electronic and biometric signatures, automated look-ups, custom form design and PDF output for printing or email routing. Its eSignature module now also caters for basic ad-hoc and form template building, with database look-ups and extensive form field options.
Routing and workflow that follows the rules
Once a document or form is in the system, it needs to reach the right person. PaperTrail gives authorised users the ability to forward or route documents to individuals or groups, and administrators can set up sequential routes or rule-based workflows that handle escalation and send each item to the correct user for processing. Data can also be exported to external systems. Rules and workflows are configured through a simple administration console or a graphical workflow designer, so processes can be adjusted as a business changes.
Put together, these features turn a document management system into something closer to an operating layer for paperwork. An email can arrive, start a workflow, collect a form, route for approval, gather a signature and land in the repository with its full history attached.
Built on capture, storage and retrieval
Underneath the workflow sits the core of PaperTrail Document Management: a secure electronic repository for electronic and scanned documents that is accessible anywhere and at any time. Documents are organised with a flexible folder taxonomy and can be shared among employees and clients using collaboration features, while searching and reporting on specific documents is built in.
PaperTrail capture solutions automate bulk and online capture, image enhancement and full-page or zonal optical character recognition. They also provide form and barcode recognition with automated or manual page separation, so paper that still arrives at the front desk can join the same digital process as everything else.
Who the platform serves
PaperTrail is used across a wide range of industries. Organisations whose feedback appears on the PaperTrail website include IHS Property Management, Triton Fleet, CBI-Electric, iStore, TWF, Old Mutual, Fair Cape Dairies and the South African Reserve Bank. Their comments refer to areas such as remote working on electronic application and lease systems, easier responses to auditors, procurement and creditors processes, and weekend support during system changes.
The same building blocks also power a set of focused solutions. CreditorsHub automates accounts payable, from supplier invoice processing to remittance and reconciliation. PeopleHub manages employee lifecycles from recruitment to onboarding while meeting regulatory requirements. LeaseHub gathers documents, completes credit checks and streamlines lease signing for tenants and agents, and TravelHub automates the collection of supplier invoices for the travel industry. Each of these relies on the group email, eForm and workflow capabilities described above.
Flexible deployment and long-term support
PaperTrail can be implemented on premise or hosted in the cloud. Clients who choose the hosted option reduce their IT investment and move spending from capital expenditure to operating expenditure. Egis Software avoids rigid, shrink-wrapped solutions that force a business to change how it works, and instead configures PaperTrail to fit each client.
Services offered include business process re-engineering, business analysis and specification, solution implementation and development, user and administrator training, cloud and on-premise fully managed servers, outsourced scanning and indexing, and first, second and third level support through service level agreements. A help desk provides 24/7 support for critical systems, with flexible options to match each client’s needs. The company has been building and supporting the platform since 1998, giving it more than two decades of experience with South African document processes.
Why it matters this October
The months before December are when unanswered emails, unsigned forms and stalled approvals do the most damage, because they roll into January as a backlog just as auditors and new budgets arrive. Organisations reviewing how they will handle that load can see how group email, eForms and workflow fit together by scheduling a demonstration with the PaperTrail team.
To learn more about PaperTrail and its full range of solutions, visit https://www.papertrail.co.za/.
About PaperTrail
PaperTrail is an electronic content management system made by Egis Software, the trading name of Mailcomp (Pty) Ltd. Egis Software was founded in 1998 by Alon Feldman and Troy Ferraris and is based at 138 Athol Street, Highlands North, Johannesburg. The company has branches in Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and New Zealand, with strategic partners in Mauritius, Botswana, Ghana and the United Kingdom. Its product range covers document management, PaperTrail Sign, PaperTrail Contract Management, CreditorsHub, PeopleHub, LeaseHub and TravelHub, and it can be deployed on premise or hosted in the cloud.
Media Contact
PaperTrail
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +27 11 880 4411
Website: https://www.papertrail.co.za
