The electronic registry office: registering, delivering and closing cases
How incoming and outgoing mail moves through an electronic records registry — from receipt and registration, through assignment and delivery to an officer, to closing the case and closing the year — in a public body and in a private company.
In short
- An electronic registry office handles registration, assignment, delivery, dispatch and closing of cases in a registry tied to the documents themselves.
- In NG DMS the server assigns the registry number at the moment of registration and never frees it, not even when a case is cancelled.
- Incoming mail arrives on paper, by e-mail or from SEF, and incoming e-invoices are entered into the received-invoices book automatically.
- Closing a case as “a/a” files it in the archive with a retention category, while “R” puts it on a deadline counted on a calendar with Serbian holidays.
- At year end the book is closed on 31 December and entered into the archive book, and the transcript goes to the competent archive by 30 April.
Short answer: an electronic registry office is a registry office in which incoming and outgoing mail and cases are registered, assigned, delivered and closed in an electronic records registry, on the same document that was scanned or received electronically. The server assigns the number at the moment of registration, every step leaves a trail, and deadlines show up before they pass. That is how NG DMS keeps the records registry for public authorities, public companies, institutions and private companies.
What is an electronic registry office?
The registry office is where mail enters and leaves an organization: it is received, registered, assigned to the officers who handle it and, once the work is done, filed in the archive. In Serbian practice all of this runs through the delovodnik, the records registry. An electronic registry office does the same job inside a system: the registry is no longer a notebook or a spreadsheet next to the documents but a record tied to the documents themselves. The closest everyday English term is a digital mailroom — with registration, deadlines and archiving built in.
The key terms, one sentence each:
- Records registry (delovodnik) is the register of received and sent documents and cases, with a number, a date and a short subject.
- A case is a set of documents about the same matter; it gets a number within the year.
- A document in a case — a request, letter, reply or decision — is registered under a sub-number.
- Registration is the entry in the registry: book, classification code, short subject and number.
- Assignment and delivery mean the case goes to an officer or a unit, with an acknowledgement of receipt.
- Dispatch is sending a document to its recipient, recorded with the case.
- Closing is how a case ends in the registry: “a/a” (ad acta) when it is resolved and filed, “R” when it waits for a deadline.
How does a case move, step by step?
- Receipt. Mail arrives on paper, by e-mail, from SEF (Serbia's e-invoicing system) or as a document already in the system. The details from the receipt stamp go into the first document.
- Scanning and reading. Paper gets an ASB label and goes through the scanner; OCR reads Cyrillic and Latin script, and a PDF/A-2b archival copy is created.
- Registration. The registry office picks the book and the classification code and enters a short subject, and the server assigns the sequence number within the year.
- Assignment and delivery. The case goes to an officer or a unit, and receipt of delivery is acknowledged.
- Handling. The officer prepares a reply, from a template with the organization's letterhead when that helps, and the document can go through an approval workflow and signature.
- Dispatch. The reply is registered as a document in the same case, and dispatch is recorded once.
- Closing. “a/a” with a retention category, or “R” with a deadline. A closed case can be reopened when needed.
- Closing the year. The book is closed on 31 December and entered into the archive book, and the transcript goes to the competent archive by 30 April of the following year.
The key point is that all of this happens on one document. A registered document is the same one that was scanned, read by OCR and found in search — no copying from the registry into a folder and back.
How is incoming mail received: paper, e-mail and SEF
- Paper. An ASB label goes on the first page and a separator between documents, and the scanned stack splits itself into documents. The number on the label leads from scan to binder and back — see ASB labels and separator sheets.
- E-mail. Rules per e-mail account take in attachments or the whole message as a document, with the sender and the date received. From Outlook, a message or attachment is saved to NG DMS with a type and tags.
- SEF. An incoming e-invoice or e-dispatch note becomes a DMS document and is entered into the received-invoices book automatically, with the supplier as correspondent. From there the invoice goes into an approval workflow before payment — how to design one is covered in Invoice and contract approval without paper or e-mail chains.
Sorting incoming mail can be handed to an NG Copilot AI agent: it sorts what arrives, suggests registration and assignment to an officer, and drafts a reply. Anything that needs a decision waits for a person — registration is confirmed by a user with the right.
Who assigns the registry number, and why is it never reused?
In a paper book a person writes the number down, so mistakes happen: a skipped number, or the same number entered twice. In NG DMS the server assigns the number at the moment of registration and never frees it — a cancelled case keeps its own number, so the sequence stays verifiable. Registry books are kept per organization, and several organizations in one system remain strictly separated.
How does the registry office avoid missing deadlines?
Closing deadlines are counted on a business calendar with Serbian holidays, and a case with an overdue deadline shows up among items needing attention. Each officer's tasks, deadlines and mentions are in one place, the “My work” view, with notifications in the app and by e-mail. Deadlines for the archive book transcript and for disposal appear in the compliance calendar, so you can see what is due this week.
Who can see which case?
Typically the registry office sees incoming mail, an officer sees their own cases, and a manager sees their unit. NG DMS handles this with roles per organization — system roles exist for the registry office, case officer, archivist and auditor — and with scope: “only mine”, “my unit”, “my unit and below” or the whole organization. Five confidentiality levels, from Public to Personal data, add one more layer, and opening, printing or downloading a strictly confidential document always leaves a trail. Details are on the Access and isolation page.
Public sector vs private companies: what is the same and what differs?
The basics are the same — registration, assignment, closing and archive — but the emphasis differs:
| Topic | Public body or institution | Private company |
|---|---|---|
| Typical incoming mail | citizens' requests and letters from other authorities, often on paper and in Cyrillic | SEF e-invoices, contracts, letters from partners, e-mail |
| What matters most | office administration rules and per-unit permissions | fast invoice approval and the link to the ERP |
| Key features | records registry, ASB labels, Cyrillic OCR, Active Directory sign-in | received-invoices book, approval workflows, the link to NG One |
| Where it runs | in the institution's data centre or in the cloud | in the cloud with data in the EU, or on-premises |
| Archive | retention schedule, archive book, transcript and disposal in the same system | retention schedule, archive book, transcript and disposal in the same system |
For institutions, every capability is summarised on the Public sector page, and the registry and archive in detail on the Registry and archive page.
How do you move over from a paper book or Excel?
An organization switching mid-year sets a starting number, so the first case in NG DMS gets the last paper number plus one. Existing data is imported in order: the retention schedule, the registry by year, then the archive book, with the old book's sequence number as a control column — a gap in the sequence is reported before anything is written. How the archive book and its transcript are kept from then on is described in The archive book and the list of record categories.
To see one case travel through your own mail, from envelope to closing, book a demo.
Frequently asked questions
What is an electronic registry office?
A registry office in which incoming and outgoing mail and cases are registered, assigned, delivered and closed in an electronic records registry, on the same document that was scanned or received electronically, with a server-assigned number and a trail of every step.
What do “a/a” and “R” mean when a case is closed?
Closing ends a case in the records registry. “a/a” (ad acta) means the case is resolved and filed in the archive with a retention category; “R” means the case waits for a deadline. In NG DMS a closed case can be reopened when needed.
Who assigns the registry number in NG DMS?
The server, at the moment of registration. The number is never freed: a cancelled case keeps its own number, so the sequence stays verifiable. An organization moving from a paper book sets a starting number, so numbering continues where it stopped.
Can an e-mail be registered in the records registry?
Yes. Rules per e-mail account take in attachments or the whole message as a document, with the sender and date received, and that document is registered just like mail received on paper.
Does an electronic registry office make sense for a private company?
Yes. A company gets order in its incoming mail, proof of who received what and when, a received-invoices book for SEF e-invoices and a link to approval workflows and the ERP.
What happens to the records registry at year end?
The book is closed on 31 December and entered into the archive book, and the archive book transcript for the previous year is submitted to the competent archive by 30 April. NG DMS shows that deadline in the compliance calendar.
Want to see how this looks in NG DMS?
We will show you in a demo, on examples from your own registry office — from the scan to NG Copilot’s answer. No obligation.