Document Lifecycle

Every document in Papermerge moves through a small number of states, starting the moment you upload it and ending, potentially years later, when it’s deleted. This page explains what each state means, what you can (and can’t) do to a document while it’s in that state, and how to move a document from one state to the next.

A document can be in one of the following states:

• Draft
• Archived
• Superseded
• Expired

Note

These states technically belong to a document’s version, not the document itself. A document doesn’t have a state of its own — it simply takes on whatever state its most recent version is in. See Document State vs. Version State below for the full picture.

Draft

All newly uploaded documents start out as Draft — this is the state a document is in while you’re getting it ready for archiving. While a document is in Draft, you can:

• Change its title
• Add or remove tags
• Assign it to a category and fill in metadata
• Rotate, reorder, delete, or extract pages (see Organize Pages)
• Delete the document entirely

A document stays in Draft for as long as you need — nothing happens automatically. The key point is that a Draft document isn’t ready to be committed to long-term storage yet, so it’s still fully open to change — which is exactly why you’re also free to delete it outright if it turns out you don’t need it.

Archived

Once a document is ready — pages in order, category assigned, metadata filled in — archive it by opening it and clicking Archive in the details panel.

Archiving requires the document to be assigned to a category that has a retention period and a deletion approver configured (the setup wizard sets this up for you automatically; see Categories to configure it manually).

Note

Once archived, a document can no longer be edited or deleted directly. This is intentional — it’s what makes an archived document a reliable, tamper-proof record. See GoBD Compliance for why this matters.

Example: You upload a receipt that was scanned upside down. You rotate the page, assign it to the Receipts category, fill in the metadata (date, amount, vendor), and archive it.

Superseded

Archived doesn’t mean unfixable — it means corrections leave a trace. If you spot a mistake in an archived document — a typo, the wrong category, missing metadata — open it and click Supersede. This immediately:

1. Creates a new version of the document, starting in Draft
2. Marks the archived version as Superseded

You can optionally attach a short note explaining the correction, and you can even replace the file itself — for example, if you need to upload a corrected scan. The superseded version is never deleted; it stays in the system, fully accessible, alongside the new draft.

Make your corrections on the new Draft version, then archive it as usual.

Tip

Only archive a document once you’re confident it’s correct — but if you do spot a mistake afterwards, superseding it takes a few seconds and keeps a complete record of what changed.

Example: You archived an invoice but later notice the category should be Business Expenses, not Personal. You supersede it, fix the category on the new draft, and archive that. The original version is now Superseded but stays accessible for audits.

Expired

Every archived document has a retention period — a minimum length of time it must be kept, based on its category. When that period ends, the document automatically becomes Expired.

Expired doesn’t mean the document is deleted, or even deletable right away — it just means the document is now eligible for deletion. Removing it still requires sign-off from the category’s deletion approver, who will find it waiting in their deletion-approval queue.

• If approved, the document is scheduled for permanent deletion.
• If rejected (a reason is required), the document stays Expired and can be submitted for deletion again later.

See Data Retention for how retention periods and deletion approval are configured.

Document State vs. Version State

Tip

A document’s state is always the state of its most recent version.

A document can have several versions over its lifetime — the original upload, plus one new version for every correction — and each version has its own state.

For example, a receipt might go through:

1. Version 1 uploaded → document is Draft
2. Version 1 archived → document is Archived
3. A mistake is found; Version 1 is superseded, creating Version 2 → document is Draft again (Version 1 is now Superseded)
4. Version 2 archived → document is Archived again
5. Years later, the retention period ends → document is Expired

Every version stays in the system for as long as the document exists, so you — or an auditor — can always see exactly what changed, when, and who made the change.

Versions	Document State
V1 Archived	Archived
V1 Superseded, V2 Draft	Draft
V1 Superseded, V2 Archived	Archived
V1 Superseded, V2 Archived, V3 Superseded, V4 Draft	Draft
V1 Superseded, V2 Archived, V3 Superseded, V4 Archived	Archived