> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.recordengine.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Contacts & Folders
> How to organise your documents using contacts and folders — the core structure of RecordEngine.
Everything in RecordEngine is organised around **contacts** and **folders**. A contact represents any entity whose documents you're managing — a client, vendor, partner, or internal department. Folders live inside contacts and hold the actual documents.
***
## Contacts
### Creating a Contact
1. Click **Contacts** in the left sidebar
2. Click **+ New Contact**
3. Fill in the details:
| Field | Description |
| ----------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Name** | The contact's display name — company name or person's name |
| **Type** | Client, Vendor, Partner, Internal, or Other |
| **Email** | Primary contact email — stored for reference and email follow-up |
| **Phone** | Optional |
| **Company** | If the contact is a person, link them to a company |
| **Notes** | Free-text notes about this contact |
4. Click **Save**
Two folders are created automatically: **Documents** and **Review**.
***
### Contact Hierarchy (Parent / Child)
Contacts can be nested — for example, a parent company with multiple subsidiaries, or an individual person linked to their employer.
To create a child contact:
1. Open the parent contact
2. Click **+ Add Sub-Contact**
3. Fill in the sub-contact details and save
The parent-child relationship is visible in the contact list and helps keep related entities grouped together.
***
### Setting a Default Extraction Profile
Every contact can have a **default extraction profile** — the profile used automatically for all documents uploaded to that contact, without needing to select it manually on each upload.
1. Open the contact
2. Click **Edit**
3. Set **Default Extraction Profile** to the appropriate profile (e.g. *Standard Invoice* for a vendor, *Meeting Notes* for an internal team)
4. Save
This is especially useful when combined with **Email Intake** — documents that arrive by email are automatically processed with the right profile for that contact.
***
### Per-Contact AI Chat Instructions
You can give the AI standing instructions for each contact that apply every time you use AI Chat in that contact's folders:
1. Open the contact → **Edit**
2. Fill in **AI Chat Instructions** — for example:
* *"This vendor always invoices in USD. Treat all amounts as USD if currency is not stated."*
* *"Respond in Chinese. This client's documents are all in Simplified Chinese."*
* *"Focus on action items and deadlines when summarising meeting notes."*
3. Save
***
### Contact Statistics
The contact detail view shows live statistics: total documents, documents by status, and total invoice value (if using an invoice extraction profile). These update automatically as documents are processed.
***
### Editing and Deleting Contacts
* **Edit:** Open the contact → click **Edit** → make changes → Save
* **Delete:** Open the contact → click **Delete**. Contacts with documents cannot be deleted until the documents are moved or removed first.
***
## Folders
### How Folders Work
Every contact starts with two automatic folders:
* **Documents** — the main working folder for all incoming documents
* **Review** — a staging folder for documents that need special attention before being filed
You can create as many additional folders as you need.
***
### Creating a Folder
1. Open a contact
2. Click **+ New Folder**
3. Enter a folder name — for example *Q1 2025 Invoices*, *Contracts*, or *Approved*
4. Save
Folders can be created at any depth — a folder can contain other folders if needed.
***
### Moving Documents Between Folders
Documents can be moved to any folder at any time (unless the document is **Approved** and locked):
1. Open the document
2. In the right panel, use the **Move to Folder** action
3. Select the destination contact and folder
4. Confirm
You can also move documents in bulk using [Batch Operations](/user-guide/batch-operations).
***
### Deleting a Folder
1. Open the contact
2. Open the folder you want to delete
3. Click **Delete Folder**
A folder must be empty before it can be deleted. Move or delete all documents in the folder first.
***
## Organising for Scale
Here are some folder naming patterns that work well as document volumes grow:
```
Client Name/
├── 2025-Q1 Invoices
├── 2025-Q2 Invoices
├── 2025 Contracts
└── Review
```
```
Client Name/
├── Contracts
├── Court Documents
├── Correspondence
├── Invoices
└── Review
```
```
Vendor Name/
├── Incoming
├── Approved
├── Exported to ERP
└── Archived
```
```
Business Unit/
├── Project Alpha
│ ├── Invoices
│ └── Contracts
├── Project Beta
└── General
```
Use the **Rules Engine** to move documents between folders automatically based on extracted content — for example, automatically move all documents where `vendor = "Acme"` to the Acme contact's folder. See [Rules Engine](/user-guide/rules-engine) for details.