Filing, permissions and retention

Where a document sits, who may see it and how long it stays.

From inbox to filing

Every incoming document goes through the same four steps.

Inbox

17 documents

Drinking water lab result
scanned 29 Jul · 9 Elmhurst Road
Test record
Cleaning contract addendum
arrived by email 28 Jul
Contract
Elevator maintenance invoice, Q2
scanned 28 Jul
Accounting voucher
Owners' meeting minutes
scanned 27 Jul · 5 Brookfield Lane
Minutes

Matched

9 documents

Insurance policy, version 3
9 Elmhurst Road / Insurance
Insurance
Smoke alarm service record
several properties / Inspections
Test record
Correspondence on a rent reduction
71 Palmerston Road / Correspondence
Correspondence

Sign-off pending

6 documents

Lab result of 4 July
awaiting countersignature · M. Fenwick
Test record
Caretaker services addendum
awaiting approval · S. Whitfield
Contract
Draft termination letter
not approved · M. Fenwick
Draft

Filed

1,252 documents

Elevator maintenance contract, v4
42 Fairview Avenue / Contracts · signed off 14 Mar
Contract
Annual statement 2025
5 Brookfield Lane / Statements
Statement

Stored retention rules

These periods are settings in the application, not advice. They are entered during setup and reviewed regularly with the tax firm.

Type of record	Stored period	Period starts	Source of the rule	Rule reviewed	Status
Commercial books, inventories, annual accounts	Stored period10 years	Period startsend of the year of the last entry	Source of the rulecommercial and tax law	Rule reviewed14 Jan 2026	Statusactive
Accounting vouchers	Stored period8 years	Period startsend of the year they arose	Source of the rulecommercial and tax law	Rule reviewed14 Jan 2026	Statusactive, period recently adjusted
Commercial letters received	Stored period6 years	Period startsend of the year of receipt	Source of the rulecommercial and tax law	Rule reviewed14 Jan 2026	Statusactive
Copies of commercial letters sent	Stored period6 years	Period startsend of the year they were sent	Source of the rulecommercial and tax law	Rule reviewed14 Jan 2026	Statusactive
Payroll accounts	Stored period6 years	Period startsend of the year of the last payment	Source of the ruletax law	Rule reviewed14 Jan 2026	Statusactive
Management and maintenance contracts	Stored period10 years after the contract ends	Period startsend of the year the contract ended	Source of the rulehouse rule	Rule reviewed3 Feb 2026	Statusactive, house rule
Elevator inspection records	Stored perioduntil the inspection after next	Period startsdate of the inspection	Source of the rulehouse rule, stricter than required	Rule reviewed3 Feb 2026	Statusactive, house rule

When a period expires, the retention run produces a proposal list. Nothing is deleted without an explicit approval.

Permissions and pending requests

Rights are granted per role and refined per folder.

Property management
4 people · read, edit, set version in force
No access to personnel files or to the management folders.
Role
Accounts
2 people · read, file vouchers
Read access to contracts so invoices can be matched. No right to edit contract text.
Role
Caretaker team
6 people · read only
Sight of inspection and service records for their own properties. Contracts and statements are hidden.
Role
Request: read access to the resolutions file
raised 29 Jul · K. Sinclair
Requested with a time limit to 30 September. Approval by management is still outstanding.
Request
External access: tax firm
1 account · read only, 2025 voucher folder only
The account expires on 31 December and has to be granted again explicitly after that.
External

The project frame

How Awelior would approach this project

Hargreave Property Management is invented — the way it is built is not. None of this is work delivered for a client. It is the shape we would give such a project — with the same depth, but without a client who would have to answer for it.

Where it starts

Hargreave Property Management looks after 38 properties with contracts, inspection records and notice periods. The contracts sit in binders and in a network folder called “Contracts_new_final”, the deadlines in a spreadsheet. What gets missed is rarely the contract but the date: an automatic renewal that goes through because nobody looked in time.

Decisions

The deadline is the center, not the document
A document system that only files replaces one binder with another. So the follow-up date is the load-bearing structure — the contract record hangs off it, not the other way round.
Every document belongs to a property
Every contract attaches to a property. Across 38 buildings that is the only order that survives a change of case handler; filing by contract type does not.
Permissions on a screen of their own
Who may see which file is a domain question in property management, not a background setting. So it stands as its own area next to the archive.

Deliberately left outNo text recognition and no automatic deadline extraction from contract wording. A misread notice period is more dangerous than none at all — it looks like a fact and is a guess.

What is in it

Screens: 5
Content blocks: 18
Languages: 4

Five screens, in all four languages, with sidebar, header and stated role. Navigation works; tables, filters, calendar, step chains, history and forms are rendered and inert. Properties, contracts and deadlines are invented.

How it would go on

Actually storing documents
Location, versions, permissions and backup — plus the route by which a scanned contract finds its way to the right property.
Reminders that arrive
A follow-up has to reach somebody out of the system: mailbox, task list, cover during leave.
Retention and deletion
Commercial and tax retention periods on one side, deletion duties on the other. The same archive has to serve both.

Talk through your project

Sample data

An application like this for your business?

Deadline Desk is invented — the way it is cut is not. Applications like this come out of the processes a business already runs.

Talk about a solution Back to the software solutions The service page: Business software

Sample application by Awelior. Invented business, invented data, nothing stored.