How to name and file scanned documents automatically

Seven rules for names that work

1. 01

   Build names from what is on the page

   Vendor, date, invoice number, employee, claim number. Never the scanner’s counter, like Scan_0042.

2. 02

   Put dates in year-month-day order

   2026-09-14 sorts correctly in every folder view and means the same thing in every country.

3. 03

   Lead with what people sort by

   Inside a vendor folder, people want date order, so the date comes first and the invoice number second.

4. 04

   Include one value that makes the name unique

   An invoice number, claim number or policy number. A date and a name alone will clash.

5. 05

   Use one separator, the same way everywhere

   An underscore between parts and hyphens inside dates is easy to read: 2026-09-14_INV-20931.pdf.

6. 06

   Keep names short and plain

   Letters, numbers, spaces, hyphens and underscores. Windows refuses \ / : * ? " < > |, and long paths break in SharePoint and some backup tools.

7. 07

   Write the convention down

   One line per document type, kept where the team can see it. It settles arguments and helps new staff.

Naming recipes by document type

These follow the rules above and match the kinds of documents in CapturePoint’s ready-made sample jobs. Adjust the fields to the ones your documents actually carry.

Folders: how deep, and by what

Folders should match how people browse, not every way they might search. Two levels is usually right, and three is as deep as most teams need.

When the destination can store values beside the file, let it. SharePoint columns and Google Drive details make a shallow tree just as easy to search. These guides show how:

• Scan to SharePoint or OneDrive automatically
• Scan straight to Google Drive

Duplicates and missing values

When two documents want the same name

It happens more than you would think: a vendor reuses invoice numbers each year, a statement arrives twice, two people scan the same letter. The worst outcome is a silent overwrite. Good software keeps both and makes the clash visible. CapturePoint 6 never overwrites: the second file gets -2, the third -3, in your folder and in every cloud destination.

A -2 is also a signal. If you see many of them, add a value that tells the documents apart, usually the date, or check whether the same paper is being scanned twice.

When a value is missing

Some invoices have no purchase order; some forms leave a date blank. Without a rule, you get names like 2026-09-14__.pdf. Decide a word for each part, such as No PO or Undated, so the gap is obvious and still sorts sensibly. In CapturePoint 6 each field in a name has an If it’s missing, use setting for this, and the naming window shows how many of the shown examples used it.

Private values in names

File names travel further than file contents. They appear in folder listings, search results, sync logs, email notifications and sharing links, to anyone who can see the folder, even people who cannot open the file. Keep these out of names:

• Social Security numbers and other tax IDs, including vendor tax IDs from W-9s
• Bank account, card and loan numbers
• Patient, member and policy numbers when a name alone would identify a person
• Dates of birth

Use an internal reference instead: a vendor name, an employee ID that means nothing outside your company, a claim number. If you need the private value for search, store it inside the document’s data or in a column with restricted access, not in the name.

Setting it up in CapturePoint 6

CapturePoint 6 reads each document on your Windows PC, recognizes its type and pulls out the fields. Naming lives in Job setup › Export. The Export card shows the destination folder and a live preview of where a real document will land.

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1. 01

   Open the naming window

   Choose Change how files are named. On the left is every document type, with a search box; a small dot marks a type whose naming differs from the suggestion.

2. 02

   Arrange the lanes

   A type’s naming is a set of lanes: Folder 1, Folder 2 and so on, then File name, which always ends in .pdf. Each lane is a row of parts. A part is the Document type, any captured field, or Your own words. Use + to add a part and Add a folder level for another folder.

3. 03

   Pick separators and date formats

   Between parts choose an underscore, a hyphen, a space or nothing. For a date, Show as offers year, year-month, full date, month or day, so a folder can be 2026-09 while the file name carries the full date.

4. 04

   Set the missing-value wording

   Click a field’s chip and fill in If it’s missing, use. Each chip shows its value on a real document as you work.

5. 05

   Check the results on the right

   The right side draws the folder tree recent documents would produce and says how many current documents can be named, whether any two would share a name, and whether a private value is in the names.

6. 06

   Reuse it across types

   Copy Invoice naming to… gives other types the same folders and file name. Suggest naming proposes naming for every type, and Back to the suggestion undoes your changes to one type. Suggestions replace your naming only after you accept.

7. 07

   Use it and save

   Use this naming returns to Export with the change; Save in Job setup stores it.

A new job that has nowhere to send files starts with Documents › CapturePoint Exports and the job’s name, and you can change it to a network share. Each document arrives as a searchable PDF (optionally archive-grade PDF/A), a data file with every captured value and a text file.

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The same naming carries to SharePoint or OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox and Nucleus One when you add them under Other destinations. If the job exports to Content Central instead, Content Central’s catalog decides folders and names; the help article on folder and file building explains how to set that up there.

Checklist before you go live

• Every document type has a written naming line, and the team agrees on it.
• Dates are in year-month-day form, wherever they appear.
• Each file name includes a value that makes it unique.
• Every field in a name has missing-value wording.
• No tax IDs, account numbers or dates of birth in names.
• Folder depth is two or three levels at most.
• The preview shows no unexpected shared names.
• A test batch has been scanned and the results opened by someone other than the person who set it up.

Naming only works on documents that are already separate. If you scan stacks, read batch scanning and document separation too.

For setup and troubleshooting articles, see the CapturePoint help library.