Every document uploaded to Docupath passes through a clear, structured pipeline designed to ensure accurate processing, thorough review, and proper validation before final approval or rejection. The document lifecycle spans from initial upload through review, transformation, validation, and export - creating a mutually exclusive endpoint where documents are either Approved or Rejected.

This document lifecycle provides complete auditability and transparency, with each stage serving a specific purpose in the document processing workflow. The system supports multiple ingestion paths and includes flexible review capabilities with optional validation layers.

Docupath supports four document ingestion methods:

1. Web Upload Users upload documents directly through the web application. Multiple files can be queued for batch processing. Sub-organization routing is selected during upload.

2. Email Ingestion Files are sent as attachments to an organization-specific email address. Docupath supports two types of email ingestion:

Sub-organization routing is configured via override trading parties.

On the Single Primary Document address, when an email arrives without a valid business-document attachment, Docupath processes the email body itself as the document. The Multiple Primary Documents address never turns the body into a document. See Processing the Email Body as a Document.

3. API Upload Programmatic document submission via Docupath’s ingestion API, using unique API keys generated under Destination Format & APIs settings.

4. Mobile App Document capture and upload via the Pathfinder by Docupath mobile app (Android/iOS).

The review screen provides comprehensive document assessment capabilities:

Left Panel Displays structured data extracted by Docupath in Docupath Internal Format (DIF), presenting information in a dynamic layout optimized for validation. At the bottom of the panel, two tabs are available:

Right Panel Shows the original uploaded document in its native format (PDF, XML, image, etc.), allowing direct comparison with extracted data.

Smart Field-to-Document Linking Clicking any extracted field in the left panel automatically highlights the corresponding section in the source document on the right, improving validation accuracy and speed. Select Mode allows you to draw bounding boxes around data that must be captured from the document, making it easy to capture values directly into fields instead of manually typing them out - useful when a value has not already been captured accurately by Docupath.

Footer Action Bar Contains primary actions for document disposition:

The review interface includes a search bar and comprehensive filtering options:

Users can customize visible columns and perform bulk actions including Delete, Download, Reprocess, and Review.

During processing, Docupath applies multiple enrichment types to extracted data:

Scanned batches and forwarded attachments often arrive as one file holding several business documents back to back. When Split documents from this organization is enabled on the organization a document arrives under, Docupath detects where each document begins and ends, separates the file into one document per part, and processes every part as a document of its own. While this happens the document shows the Splitting status, and each resulting part is labeled with its position, such as 1 of 3. One uploaded file can therefore become several Pending documents. See the Document Splitting article for the full behavior.

For repeat documents from the same trading pair, Docupath can approve documents automatically instead of routing every one to a reviewer. After a few documents from a pair have been approved manually, the pair can be trusted, and matching Invoice and Purchase Order documents are then approved automatically - moving straight to the Approved tab with Auto Review shown as the reviewer. Any document that looks different is flagged and left in the queue for a person to check. See the Auto Review article for the full workflow.

The document lifecycle consists of four distinct stages:

Pending The document has been uploaded and is waiting for review. During this stage, the document may still be under AI processing or ready for human validation. The Pending tab includes three sub-statuses:

Validated The document has been reviewed by a validator role but is not yet finalized. This optional stage provides a second layer of assurance and quality control before final acceptance.

Approved The document has passed validation and has been accepted into the system. Once approved, the document can optionally be sent to external systems for further processing or archiving. The Approved tab includes sub-statuses:

Rejected The document has failed validation or violated applicable business rules. Rejection always requires a documented reason, creating an auditable trail for transparency and compliance.

The system supports configurable batch processing with the following options:

Extracted data is presented in Docupath Internal Format (DIF), a structured schema optimized for validation and export. Custom output formats can also be configured via Data Export Templates.