AutomateFrom R15 000 + R1 200/mo
Ask-your-docs
A private assistant that answers your team's questions straight from your own documents — and shows its sources.
What it is
In plain English
Ask-your-docs is a private assistant that has read all your important documents — policies, manuals, product specs, price lists, contracts — and can answer questions about them in plain language. Your team asks a question the way they'd ask a colleague, and it replies with the answer plus a pointer to exactly which document and page it came from.
It's not a public chatbot and it doesn't make things up from the open internet. It only answers from the files you give it, and it shows its working — so people can trust the answer and check the source. It turns the knowledge that's currently locked in folders, long PDFs, or one experienced person's head into something the whole team can reach in seconds.
When you need it
Is this you?
You need this when the answers your team needs already exist in writing somewhere — but finding them means digging through folders, scrolling long PDFs, or interrupting the one person who knows.
- Staff constantly ask "where's the document on…?" or "what's our policy on…?"
- New team members take weeks to get up to speed because the knowledge isn't easy to search.
- Critical know-how lives in one person's head, and everything stalls when they're away.
- People give clients wrong or outdated answers because they couldn't find the current document.
How we build it
What actually happens
- 1
Gather your documents
You point us at the files that matter — policies, manuals, spec sheets, price lists. We sort out which are current and which to leave out.
- 2
Index them properly
We process every document so the assistant can search by meaning, not just keywords — so "what's our refund window" finds the right clause even if the document says "returns period".
- 3
Add citations
Every answer points back to the exact document and section it came from, so your team can verify it in one click and never act on a guess.
- 4
Put it where they work
We surface it on a private web page, inside Microsoft Teams or Slack, or behind your own login — wherever your team will actually use it.
- 5
Test and set up updates
We run your real questions through it, tune the answers, and agree how new or changed documents get added so it never goes stale.
Example
How it plays out in practice
A short-term insurance brokerage in Johannesburg has dozens of policy wordings and product brochures across several insurers. When a client phones with a cover question, advisors either know it off the top of their head — or hunt through PDFs while the client waits.
- 1
An advisor asks a real question
On a client call, the advisor types: “Does the Comprehensive Plus policy cover hail damage to a car parked on the street?” — the same way they’d ask a senior colleague.
- 2
It searches the actual wordings
The assistant looks across every indexed policy document, not just the one the advisor half-remembers, and finds the relevant clause by meaning.
- 3
It answers with the source
Back comes a plain answer — “Yes, hail is covered under weather-related events” — with a citation: “Comprehensive Plus wording, section 4.2.” The advisor clicks through to confirm in seconds.
- 4
The client gets a confident answer
Instead of “let me check and call you back,” the advisor answers accurately on the call, citing the policy — and sounds like the expert they are.
- 5
New advisors keep up from day one
A junior who joined last week can answer the same question correctly, because the knowledge no longer lives only in the senior brokers’ heads.
Cover questions get answered on the first call, with the policy wording to back them up. The brokerage stops losing time to PDF-hunting and stops the risk of an advisor guessing wrong on something a client will hold them to.
What we'd need from you
To get started
- The documents themselves — policies, manuals, specs, price lists, FAQs.
- Who should be able to use it, and whether access needs to be restricted.
- Where your team would prefer to ask — a web page, Teams, Slack, or behind a login.
- A handful of real questions you'd want it to nail.
- How often the underlying documents change, so we plan updates.
Timeline
How long it takes
Most ask-your-docs builds go live in 2–4 weeks from the point we have your documents.
What can affect that:
- Scanned or photographed documents need an extra reading step before they can be indexed.
- Restricting who can see which documents (access control) adds setup time.
- Documents that change often need an update process built, which adds a little time up front.
What affects the price
Why it costs what it costs
Every build is scoped to your situation. These are the things that move the number — so there are no surprises on the call.
- How many documents
- A focused handbook is light. Indexing thousands of pages across many files is a bigger job to process and keep organised.
- Document quality
- Clean digital files are easy. Scans, photos and messy formatting need extra processing before the assistant can read them reliably.
- How often they change
- A stable set of documents is simple. A library that updates weekly needs an update pipeline so answers stay current.
- Access control
- One assistant for everyone is straightforward. Restricting documents by role or team is more to build and secure.
- Where it lives
- A simple web page is quickest. Embedding it in Teams, Slack or behind your existing login is more integration work.
Ready to build something that works?
Tell us what you need. We'll tell you honestly if and how we can help.