Managing correspondence process in a company

Traditional mail, e-mail—there are many channels used for communication with public offices or other organizations. Companies must manage incoming and outgoing messages properly to maintain consistent records and ensure timely responses. With so many communication sources, it’s easy to make mistakes or lose clarity around responsibilities. See how automation and artificial intelligence can support you in handling office correspondence.

Table of contents

1. What is correspondence management?
2. First step of handling office correspondence: registration
   1. Digital correspondence management system: your foundation for an AI-powered business assistant
3. How to manage incoming correspondence
4. How to manage outgoing correspondence
5. Integrating correspondence workflow with company information flow
6. Summary

What is correspondence management?

Correspondence management is the structured process of receiving, registering, routing, and archiving all incoming and outgoing business communication—regardless of the channel it arrives through. It ensures that every letter or email is properly recorded, assigned to the right people, and processed on time. A well‑designed correspondence management system supports legal compliance, improves accountability, and creates a single source of truth for all company communications. When combined with automation and AI, it also helps teams work faster, reduce operational risk, and maintain full visibility over every case and deadline.

First step of handling office correspondence: registration

Every letter, document, or email that affects the work of multiple people should be recorded in a central Correspondence Management System, ideally linked with Business Process Management System such as WEBCON. Correspondence can reach the system in any way: via scan or a dedicated email inbox.

Adding a new letter to the system always requires completing metadata. Thanks to OCR technology (intelligent text recognition) and the XML structure of official letters, most information about the sender and recipient is filled in automatically. Often, the type of correspondence and the process it refers to can be identified just from the message title.

Digital correspondence management system: your foundation for an AI-powered business assistant

A well‑designed correspondence archive is also a solid foundation for enterprise AI assistants. With such a base, employees can work much more efficiently. What possibilities does a digital, AI‑enhanced correspondence registry unlock?

• Semantic search: instead of searching documents by keywords, you can ask your assistant: “What were the main legal concerns in last quarter’s correspondence with Company X?” or “Have we received a response to our payment request yet?”. AI searches the register and returns answers based on facts from your incoming and outgoing correspondence.
• Automatic summaries: managers can receive a daily report of the most important incoming letters, each—even long official documents—summarized into 3–4 key points and actionable tasks.
• Sentiment analysis and prioritization: AI can detect the tone of correspondence. If a highly emotional complaint arrives or a letter with a tight statutory deadline, the system can assign it the highest priority and notify the appropriate director.
• Intelligent response drafting: based on the incoming letter and historical data (e.g., previous decisions in similar cases), AI can prepare a draft response. Employees only verify the content, shortening processing time.

This creates a strategic knowledge base where AI organizes information and speeds up work. Humans remain responsible for choosing the appropriate course of action.

After registration, the process of receiving or sending a letter begins. Let’s take a look at each.

How to manage incoming correspondence

The simplest model of handling incoming mail includes 3 steps:

1. Registering the letter.
2. Assignment (delegation) to the correct department or person.
3. Sending the letter to the archive or into another business process, e.g., complaints, debt collection, or contract workflow.

A well‑designed incoming mail workflow should ensure:

• Registration of letters from various sources: email, the e‑Delivery inbox, scanner, or manual initiation with a document upload. Registration from the e‑Delivery inbox happens automatically without logging into the portal. Digital mail is assigned to employees responsible for office administration through tasks in systems like WEBCON BPS. The next step is routing it to the correct department or employee, whose task is to confirm receipt or assign an owner.
• Permission management for specific types of letters: employees see only the documents necessary for their responsibilities. In an electronic correspondence management system, access can be divided by roles. For example: HR sees letters concerning employees, and the Legal‑Finance department sees administrative correspondence.
• GDPR compliance: automated retention rules enable deleting or archiving documents after legally required periods.
• Deadline notifications: for incoming correspondence—especially from public offices—the date of opening the message is crucial. In correspondence management systems, alerts and reminders are essential.

With this foundation, it’s easy to build an organized model for handling outgoing letters—responses that close cases and shape client experience.

How to manage outgoing correspondence

In handling outgoing correspondence, it is crucial that no response “gets stuck”, the content is consistent with company policy, and that letters are linked to the correct case and contractor.

Depending on the type of correspondence, the outgoing mail workflow initiated by a user may require additional approval from a supervisor. Afterwards, it is passed to the employee responsible for sending the mail or to office staff who send the letter to the external recipient. Integration with e‑Delivery allows outgoing correspondence to be sent directly to the government portal’s outbox, from where it is automatically delivered with confirmation of receipt.

A well-organized (and workflow‑supported) process enables:

• Registration of a new letter: integration with the contractor database allows quick completion of recipient details. After entering a VAT ID, the system can retrieve data from external registers.
• Monitoring the preparation process: the system shows how long the letter waits at each stage—from draft, through approval, to dispatch—making bottlenecks visible (e.g., documents “stuck” with a director for approval).
• Change tracking and full history: every version change, comment, or new status is permanently linked to a date and author. You can track who approved the final version sent to the contractor or authority. This supports document governance and ensures consistent access to correspondence, including archived letters and attachments.
• Integration with other processes, such as case management, invoice workflow, and contract workflow.
• Remote document signing: through integration with qualified e‑signature tools (e.g., Autenti), authorized employees can sign letters remotely, without printing or scanning. This is especially important in distributed teams.

Diagram of outgoing correspondence

Integrating correspondence workflow with company information flow

Handling correspondence is rarely a goal in itself. A letter almost always relates to a specific case: a contract, investment, dispute, inspection, or complaint. This is where the true value of digitalization comes in: documents are not only digitized but also supplement information within the relevant process.

By integrating correspondence handling into a broader information‑management system, executives gain access to analytics on how long administrative cases take, which teams are overloaded, and where bottlenecks occur. This leads to savings of up to USD 115,255 within 3 years of implementing internal process automation, including correspondence workflow (WEBCON data).

Teams also gain more time for substantive work instead of searching for information—still a challenge in many organizations. According to an Adobe study, 48% of employees struggle to quickly locate documents in their company’s systems.

Summary

A well‑designed process for managing incoming and outgoing correspondence is now essential for secure and predictable business operations. A digital archive, clearly defined roles and permissions, deadline control, combined with AI support, deliver measurable savings within just three years of implementing a correspondence management workflow.

If you’re looking for a reliable partner to design and optimize this process in your organization: contact the experts at GoNextStage.