Does it work with our software?

THE PRINCIPLE

What the sector has in common is a folder.

RA-MICRO, AnNoText and NOAH have no open programming interface a third party could use — that is researched, not assumed. What remains is the watched import folder the office scanner already writes into. For RA-MICRO it is evidenced, with a published format; that the same path also carries AnNoText and NOAH is our working assumption, and it stands in our records as one. Build that one path properly and you reach RA-MICRO with evidence, the other two in all likelihood and the office without practice software in any case.

That is why nothing below says “fully integrated”. What it says is how deep the connection actually goes — a file path, a data path, or nothing.

running built, tested, and demonstrable in the demo

we set this up the path is settled and partly built; what is missing is access we cannot grant ourselves

Import folder and sidecar file — RA-MICRO, AnNoText, NOAH

running

Depth: a file path in both directions, not a programming interface. It is triggered from the interface — a button in the matter’s toolbar rather than a command on the command line; before anything is written a prompt names the target folder and the file name, and the document is filed only on a click. NotarFlow places the finished document into your software’s import folder together with an XML description file of the same name; the software picks up both as it would a scan and takes the file reference, category and sender from the XML. In the other direction NotarFlow reads that same file and files a returning document by its case reference, without having to put it through text recognition first. What NotarFlow does not do: it does not drive your practice software remotely and does not write into its database.

Evidence: the XML format is RA-MICRO’s publicly documented import path, implemented in the module for both reading and writing — including the quirks of the specification. Reading goes exclusively through a hardened XML library, because anyone who can operate the scanner can write into that folder. For AnNoText and NOAH we assume the same folder path and write the same sidecar fields; there it is not evidenced. The button in the interface calls the same implementation as the command line and is covered by its own tests for permissions, success, failure cases and the audit entry. It has not yet been checked against a live office system — the ten-minute test for that is on the list for the pilot office.

Word output (DOCX)

running

Depth: a full output format, not an exchange protocol. The draft leaves NotarFlow as an editable Word document with real paragraphs and styles — selectable, movable and changeable like a document you typed yourself. That is deliberate: the notary has to work on the draft afterwards, and documents from report generators are nested tables of cells in which no sentence can be inserted cleanly. The source stays your approved template, not a second Word file beside it.

Evidence: a renderer of our own on a permissively licensed library, with its own test in the repository. It is the only outward path that has been built — and deliberately the one every system and every person can read.

A connection for your IT (local interface)

running

Depth: a documented interface on the office machine, reachable only from there. NotarFlow ships an interface of its own that your IT provider can build against — own reports, own connections — without waiting for us. It listens on the machine itself and nowhere else: there is no endpoint on the internet and no service of ours behind it. The description of the interface ships with the program and is served locally; it describes endpoints, it hands out no data.

Evidence: implemented and in the repository, with more than twenty test files for the interface alone. The description page loads its viewer from the program directory rather than from a foreign network — otherwise the very process holding the file in memory would be a process with a line to the outside.

Scanner and email intake

running

Depth: intake with no prerequisite whatsoever on the other side. A watched folder accepts whatever your scanner drops into it, and a shared mailbox is collected over IMAP; both feed the same inbox, where every item is matched to a matter. A file is touched only once it has finished being written — scanners and network drives write in pieces, and reading too early means reading half a PDF. Nothing uncertain is guessed: whatever cannot be matched unambiguously lands in the inbox marked “check” and advances no deadline.

Evidence: folder watcher and mailbox collection are built and tested; PDF, TIFF, JPG, PNG, DOCX and email are accepted, recognised by content rather than by file extension. Limits on size, nesting depth and time run before every read. Around 130 tests in the module, with no network and no mailbox.

XNP and the register of deeds

we set this up

Depth today: none — NotarFlow prepares the entry but does not hand it over. The proposed entry for the Urkundenverzeichnis (the statutory German register of notarial deeds) is assembled within the matter and approved by the notary; the entry itself is then made by hand in XNP. The route for handing it over is researched and settled: since late 2025 XNP has a local interface through which an approved entry could be passed across together with its document. What is missing is not ours to produce: access to the specification requires registration as a software vendor with the Bundesnotarkammer (the Federal Chamber of Notaries). The letter for that is written but has not yet been sent. And until a genuine XNP document exists to look at, we build no parser for it — it would be guesswork.

Evidence: the research on the local XNP interface and the letter to the Federal Chamber of Notaries are in the repository as documents, and the proposed register entry is built. The writing path into XNP is not — which is why it does not appear here as “running”.

Calendar (Microsoft 365)

we set this up

Depth planned: read-only, and only free or busy. The whole evaluation is built and tested — reading the time grid, checking clashes, working out free windows; today it runs against a sample file. What is missing sits with your IT: registering NotarFlow in your office’s directory service, with consent from your administrators. Exactly one part is then added; the rest is finished. Nothing is written even afterwards: write permission for calendars includes reading every appointment in full, and under professional confidentiality rules that costs more than it is worth. The requested slot therefore goes to the dashboard, and the entry is made in the office calendar.

Evidence: the evaluation, its limits and the clash check are implemented and tested in the repository, as is the set-up guide for your administrators. Names, subjects and locations do not survive the evaluation — a test holds that in place. Offices with an in-house Exchange server, or with no server calendar at all, have separate routes; which one applies is settled before set-up.

ABOUT THE NAMES ON THIS PAGE

RA-MICRO, AnNoText, TriNotar, NOAH, CVC Notre, ProNotar, Advoware, ArnoTop, Winmacs, Actaport, XNP and Microsoft 365 are the names of their respective providers — including the ones in the classification further down. We deliberately show none of their logos and claim no partnership, no certification and no approval from them. What stands here describes only which path has been built on our side.

And the statement that holds this page together: NotarFlow does not replace your practice software. The register of deeds, the file and the statutory registers stay where they are — NotarFlow fills the gap in front of them.

YOUR SYSTEM

What we can say about your software — and what we cannot.

We are not counting logos here. It is common to line up eight names of notarial software as import targets without a word about what stands behind them technically. This page writes down for every single system what we can evidence and what we cannot — including where the answer is uncomfortable for us. For seven of eight the import folder is unevidenced, and that is exactly what it then says.

runningThe import format is publicly documented, and the path to it is built, tested and demonstrable in our demo — evidenced in source, not announced.

we set this up at installationThe system accepts documents through a watched folder, and we write into that format. We have not seen it run against the system itself.

Word path evidenced — we set up the rest with youThe vendor documents working with Microsoft Word, and that is where our draft arrives. Whether there is also an import folder we have not examined — so we do not claim it.

we check it for you, free of charge before any offerApplies to every system not listed below — and there are more than these eight. We have no evidenced position on them and invent none. Tell us what you run; we look into it before the quotation.

RA-MICRORA-MICRO Software GmbH running The import folder accepts the document together with an XML description file of the same name. That format is publicly documented and implemented on our side for both reading and writing, including the quirks of the specification; reading goes exclusively through a hardened XML library, because anyone who can operate the scanner can write into that folder. There is no open programming interface here either — the folder is the path, and it is enough.

ATAnNoText and TriNotarWolters Kluwer Deutschland GmbH we set this up at installation The same folder path, the same sidecar fields as for RA-MICRO. By the vendor’s own account the interface specification is handed out on request only; we do not have it. What remains open is where the format differs from RA-MICRO. We write in the documented format and say plainly that we have not seen it against a running system.

NOAHWesternacher Solutions GmbH we set this up at installation The same folder path. Nothing a third party could use is publicly documented about the interface, and no open programming interface exists — that is researched, not assumed. Everything format-specific is therefore open.

CVC NotreCVC IT-Solutions GmbH, Hamburg Word path evidenced — we set up the rest with you The vendor names interfaces to Word and Excel on its product page in as many words. That is where our draft arrives. The brochure further describes an automatic scan import into the file, the import of emails carrying their actual date of receipt, and XNP in both directions. How any of that happens technically is stated nowhere — so the folder path stays unevidenced here, even though that description makes a fair case for it.

PRProNotarAndreas Krauss Hard- und Softwareservice GmbH, Grafling Word path evidenced — we set up the rest with you The clearest Word evidence in the whole field: in the vendor’s system requirements (as of 25 February 2025) Microsoft Word is a condition of operation rather than an accessory — Word 2024 or 2021, and it must be the 32-bit build. Outlook is optional through a module of its own. An import folder or an interface for third parties cannot be evidenced.

AdvowareSTP Informationstechnologie GmbH, Karlsruhe Word path evidenced — we set up the rest with you The vendor’s own list of interfaces (12/2024) names Microsoft Office with Word, Excel, Access and Outlook, plus the German lawyers’ electronic mailbox, a certified DATEV interface, handover into the electronic register of deeds, and the tax filing portal. An open interface for third parties is not in that list. A batch import of documents is described in the online help, and that page was unreachable during the research — so we do not carry it here as evidenced.

ARArnoTopRalf Schirm GmbH, Elchingen Word path evidenced — we set up the rest with you The vendor describes importing scanned documents into every part of the program, and integration with the common Office applications including Word. Whether that scan import is a watched folder or a dialogue on screen is not stated — and that is precisely the difference between a connection and a manual step.

WinmacsRummel Software GmbH; notarial work is the paid add-on module WM Notar Word path evidenced — we set up the rest with you The vendor’s brochure names text templates in Microsoft Word and individual editing there — so the Word path is evidenced. Two things belong beside it: the notarial side is an add-on rather than the core, and it is explicitly aimed at lawyer-notaries. An import folder or an interface for third parties cannot be evidenced.

One name is missing from the list, and that is the statement: Actaport appears in vendors’ line-ups as a target for notarial offices. We do not carry it as notarial software — it does not appear in the electronic legal correspondence register of notarial software houses, and the vendor’s own site holds no page on notarial work. Classifying it, into whichever column, would already be the first claim. If you work with it and we are wrong: tell us, and it will stand here.

The path that arrives everywhere is the dullest one: Word. ProNotar makes Word a condition of operation, Advoware lists the Office interface among its own interfaces, CVC Notre names Word and Excel on its product page, ArnoTop integrates the common Office applications, Winmacs works from Word templates. The vendor’s own import folder is evidenced for one of the eight systems, Word for five. That is why our draft leaves NotarFlow as a Word file — not as a fallback, but because it is the only path we can evidence for those five without leaning on an assurance nobody has given us.

THE MOST IMPORTANT PATH DOES NOT RUN THROUGH THE PRACTICE SOFTWARE

The German register of notarial deeds has been kept exclusively in electronic form since 2022, and the way into it is described by the Federal Chamber of Notaries: a directory in the office’s own file system, one file per entry, a publicly published format. The same holds for the register of escrow matters, and for XNotar a matter folder with a message in the freely downloadable XJustiz schema. That path hangs on no vendor — it works in an office running RA-MICRO exactly as it works in an office with no practice software at all.

And it is built the way we work anyway: what arrives there is a proposal in the status „in preparation“. The entry is made by a person, with card and signature; the register stays the leading system. We are building towards that path — it is not built today, and while it is not standing it does not stand here as a promise either. It is the reason nothing above says „fully integrated“: the depth that counts does not sit with the vendors.

What is not in this list is not in the quotation either. For five of the eight systems we say nothing about the folder path, and about any system that does not appear above we say nothing at all today. If you run one of them, tell us: we check whether there is a watched import folder before the quotation. If there is, the path is the same as for RA-MICRO. If there is not, what remains is the folder on your own drive with the Word file in it. That, too, goes into the quotation and not into the introduction.

And one sentence holds for all eight: none of these paths has yet been checked against a live office system. The test takes ten minutes — drop a file plus its XML description into the import folder and see whether it arrives — and it is on the list for the pilot office. Once it has run, its result stands here, including the more uncomfortable one.

WHAT WE DELIBERATELY DO NOT BUILD

No telephone AI.

A voice assistant that answers the office telephone is technically feasible, and it can be bought. We are not building one — not out of caution, but because the arithmetic does not work. The preparation of a deed does not come into being on the telephone. It comes into being out of documents: the land register extract, the other side’s draft, the completed data sheet, the identity papers, the reply from the tax office. A call supplies, at best, the occasion and a name. Whoever takes the call perfectly has not yet started the matter — and the hours a notarial office actually spends sit inside the matter.

Beyond that, answering the telephone is settled ground. A phone system with an announcement and call forwarding, an answering machine, a secretariat that knows the office and can place a query at once: there have been working solutions for decades that surprise nobody and need nothing to do with us. We put our work where it has not been done yet — drafting, the fee calculation under the German notarial fees act, completion, escrow, estate inventories, anti-money-laundering documentation. This is a decision, not a law of nature: if a notarial office shows us that there are hours on the telephone we cannot see, it deserves to be examined again. Until then it stands here, so that nobody has to ask.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT BOOKING APPOINTMENTS

Letting appointments be booked online is built and belongs to the Appointments & Parties building block; the clash check behind it is tested. What is meant here is an assistant that conducts the conversation itself.

Does it work with our software? Through the folder — nearly always.

What the sector has in common is a folder.

Import folder and sidecar file — RA-MICRO, AnNoText, NOAH

Word output (DOCX)

A connection for your IT (local interface)

Scanner and email intake

XNP and the register of deeds

Calendar (Microsoft 365)

What we can say about your software — and what we cannot.

No telephone AI.

Answered briefly.

Tell us your software and we will tell you what works.