Your own API key — why and how to set it up

Document reading and the assistant use a language model. The application does not mediate access to it — it uses the key you provide in the settings.

Why this way

Three reasons, all practical:

• You are billed directly by the model provider, according to its pricing, without our margin in between.
• You can see your usage in the provider’s dashboard, down to each request.
• The data processing agreement is between you and the model provider. For documents covered by trade secrets, this is not a minor detail — the legal department usually asks about it first.

Where to enter it

Settings → Package and AI, the “API key” field. It is entered by the account owner; editors and readers cannot see this section.

The key is stored encrypted in the database and cannot be read after saving — only the last four characters are shown in the field, so you can identify which key is entered. An empty field does not delete anything; a separate checkbox below the field is used to remove the key.

What happens without a key

Everything else in the application works as normal: records, documents, declarations, export. Document reading and the assistant are disabled — values then need to be entered manually.

How much it costs

It depends on the number and size of documents. As an order of magnitude: a few pence for a typical text document, more for a multi-page scan.

The application does not impose any request limit — since you pay the bill, there is nothing to ration. It only shows a counter: how many requests were made this month, how many in the previous month, and what they were used for. Set a spending limit in the model provider’s dashboard — that is the only place where you can set one.