A folder tree rarely becomes confusing because of one decision. Each file is saved somewhere that makes sense at the time, and each new folder solves the immediate problem.

A few years later, ten documents that matter are spread across two folders:

Documents/
├── 2025/
│   └── Document (1).pdf
|
├── Important/
│   ├── Bank/
│   │   └── statement(3).pdf
│   ├── Important - old/
│   │   └── Document.pdf
│   └── scan0034.pdf
|
├── Insurance 2024/
│   └── policy_final_FINAL.pdf
|
├── TAX STUFF/
|
└── To sort/
    ├── IMG_2291.jpg
    ├── receipt.pdf
    └── scan0035.pdf

|
Downloads/
├── 8f3c2a91-invoice.pdf
└── WhatsApp Image 2026-03-14 at 18.02.11.jpeg

Each choice had a reason. Important was meant for what matters, then grew a Bank folder and a place for whatever had stopped being current. Insurance 2024 holds a motor policy for 2026–27. TAX STUFF is empty because the property tax receipt went into 2025. To sort is where things went when none of the other folders seemed right, and the last two files never left Downloads.

The filenames do not help either. scan0034.pdf is a Harbour Health policy. scan0035.pdf is a degree certificate. Document.pdf is the letter from Northwind Bank confirming that a loan was closed, which someone will ask for when the house is sold. Those names record the order in which a scanner, a browser and a phone happened to produce the files. To find the loan letter again, you open files until one of them is the loan letter.

Suchi gives each document one numbered category and stops the filing tree there. Metadata and search carry the other connections. For a document archive, Suchi uses an area-and-category structure.

Give the documents one home

Under Settings → Archive configuration → Filing tree, Suchi offers Solo, Household, Freelance, Small business and Blank slate as starting points.

Take the ten loose files above: two policies, a service invoice, a degree certificate, a bank statement, a loan letter, a property tax receipt, two medical bills and an electricity bill. The relevant parts of the Household tree are:

10-19 Family admin    11 Family IDs · 12 Insurance · 13 Vehicles
                      14 Memberships & associations · 15 Education · 16 Employment

20-29 Money           21 Bank & card statements · 22 Investments · 23 Income tax
                      24 Loans · 25 Purchases & warranties

30-39 Health          31 Medical records · 32 Prescriptions · 33 Medical billing

50-59 Home            51 Utilities · 52 Housing

Category names get you most of the way. Their short descriptions handle the close calls. A motor policy stays with other policies in 12 Insurance, while the car’s service invoice goes to 13 Vehicles. A pharmacy receipt goes to 33 Medical billing; 32 Prescriptions holds prescription records.

With those choices made, Suchi renders the ten documents on disk like this:

rendered/
├── 10-19 Family admin
│   ├── 12 Insurance
│   │   ├── 2025
│   │   │   └── 2025-10-04 Health policy 2025–26__1.pdf
│   │   └── 2026
│   │       └── 2026-06-12 Motor policy 2026–27__6.pdf
│   ├── 13 Vehicles
│   │   └── 2026
│   │       └── 2026-03-14 Car service invoice__10.jpeg
│   └── 15 Education
│       └── 2019
│           └── 2019-07-20 Degree certificate__2.pdf
├── 20-29 Money
│   ├── 21 Bank & card statements
│   │   └── 2026
│   │       └── 2026-08-02 Statement July 2026__9.pdf
│   └── 24 Loans
│       └── 2026
│           └── 2026-05-11 Loan closure letter__3.pdf
├── 30-39 Health
│   └── 33 Medical billing
│       └── 2026
│           ├── 2026-04-18 Hospital bill__4.jpg
│           └── 2026-10-09 Pharmacy receipt October 2026__7.pdf
└── 50-59 Home
    ├── 51 Utilities
    │   └── 2026
    │       └── 2026-08-01 Electricity bill July 2026__8.pdf
    └── 52 Housing
        └── 2026
            └── 2026-07-30 Property tax receipt 2026–27__5.pdf

Another household may draw these boundaries differently. Here, the written descriptions give the next motor policy the same home as this one.

Keep one category level

In 20-29 Money, “21 Bank & card statements” is a complete category. Suchi does not divide it into 21.01 Current accounts, then add another level for a bank or a particular account. Every category ends with one two-digit code.

This keeps the address short and makes every branch stop in the same place. Banking cannot stop at 21 while insurance runs on to 12.04.03. Filing has two choices: the area, then the category. You never have to remember whether a motor policy followed Money → Insurance → Motor or Vehicles → Van → Insurance.

A deeper tree can look precise during setup. In use, every client, account, car and project creates another branch to remember later. Suchi keeps those distinctions out of the filing tree. The Household description settles the choice once and sends every policy, including motor policies, to 12 Insurance.

The category is a stable filing address, not a complete description of the document. The van can remain a tag or typed field. Meridian General is the correspondent, and the policy text is searchable. You can search any of those facts without adding another folder.

When one Suchi installation holds more than one filing system, such as separate household and business archives, S01.21 says where to look: S01 selects the archive and 21 names the category. There is no separate area number because the first digit of 21 already places it in area 20–29. Adding the area again would repeat the same information and make the tree feel deeper than it is.

Documents sit directly in a category in Suchi’s filing tree. The generated folders group them by year, but the year is there for browsing and is not another category.

What the numbers add

Good folder names can reproduce the same hierarchy. The numbers preserve its order. Sorted only by name, Bank & card statements, Education, Employment, Family IDs, Housing and Income tax are scattered. With numbers, the Money categories stay together in the 20s in Suchi’s sidebar and in every file manager.

A number also survives a category rename. A reviewed change from 12 Insurance to 12 Policies keeps the same documents on the same numbered shelf. The range makes the size limit real. “Keep this area small” is advice; requiring its category codes to sit between 11 and 19 is a rule that Suchi can enforce. When the range is full, categories must be broadened or merged instead of hidden under another level.

The address is short enough to say and type. “It’s under 21” works over the phone, and jd:21 is shorter than jd:"Bank & card statements". It also stays the same when the category has a name in another language. Suchi always shows the name beside the number, so you do not need to memorise 21 before it becomes familiar.

Suchi sets aside 00-09 for the generated system index and 40-49 for System. 49 Inbox holds documents without a reliable category. 00-09 System index/00.00 archive.huml is a plain-text map of the current tree and its category descriptions, not a list of documents. Suchi refreshes it after a committed tree change.

The default path keeps the address useful outside the application. It repeats the document’s recorded created date inside its year folder: …/2026/2026-06-12 Motor policy 2026–27__6.pdf. The year keeps the category easy to browse. The full ISO date sorts files by day and stays with a file copied elsewhere. Suchi does not rely on filesystem timestamps or embedded metadata, which may change, disagree or be absent. If the recorded created date is missing, it uses the added date, then undated.

Even without Suchi, the path carries the area, category, year, date, title and document number. Keeping a Suchi archive recoverable for thirty years covers the rest of the archive needed to read those files independently. If you keep paper originals, an archive serial number can give the scan and its sheet one shared label so the box can remain in number order.

Numbers on disk are optional. A folder layout can retain a structure you already use or omit the numbers entirely, while the documents remain filed in their numbered categories inside Suchi.

Filing and finding in Suchi

The numbers are for reading and navigating; you do not have to type one to file every document. A Watched folder takes whatever lands in the directory your scanner uses and never moves, renames or deletes those originals.

Rules file recurring documents. Local matching can suggest a category from documents already in the archive, and an optional classifier receives the area names, category names and descriptions. Suggestions can wait for review. Anything without a reliable destination remains in 49 Inbox. From inbox to filed follows one document through that process.

The motor policy from the earlier example stays in 12 Insurance, while its record carries the details the filing tree leaves out. Meridian General is the correspondent; van can be a tag, a typed field can hold the renewal date, and a link can join the policy to the one it replaces.

Search works across those facts and the text Suchi extracts from PDFs, scans, email and office documents:

health insurance
jd:12 from:"Meridian General"
tag:van -tag:sold
field:"Invoice amount">=100

Plain words search titles and extracted text, so a badly named scan can appear before it leaves Inbox. jd:, from: and tag: narrow the result by category, correspondent and tag. Separate clauses must all match; a leading - excludes one. A money field such as Invoice amount can be compared as a value instead of searched as text.

A saved query is a live View. New documents that match appear there without moving or creating a second folder tree. A View can show every document tagged van, every renewal from one insurer or every invoice above an amount.

Tags are looser than categories. A document can have several, and a rule or optional classifier can propose them. The classifier sees up to one hundred of the archive’s most-used tag names and reuses an exact or plural match. It does not merge synonyms, so car and vehicle can remain separate until someone tidies them.

Limits of the filing tree

  • One category per document. A house purchase can span 52 Housing, 24 Loans and other categories. Tags, Views and links can collect or connect those documents, but they do not place one document in two categories or create a project folder in the numbered tree.
  • The tree encodes choices. A built-in tree decides where borderline documents go and how much room each area gets; yours may draw those lines differently. That room is fixed: an area holds nine categories, so a category-per-client scheme will run out. Correspondents fit that relationship better.
  • Addresses take time to learn. Until it becomes familiar, 24 means nothing on its own. Suchi therefore displays 24 Loans and accepts either jd:24 or jd:"24 Loans", keeping the full label visible while the number becomes familiar.
  • A tree is still required. Suchi requires a filing tree even when tags would be enough. An uncertain filing suggestion leaves the document in 49 Inbox in either application mode. Review first goes further: even confident inferred changes wait for approval.

The five supplied trees are starting points, not reviewed standards or compliance advice. Build your own combines ready-made category sets for each area, while Import or export accepts a custom HuML or TOML tree. Before a change is applied, Suchi previews the complete target tree, name collisions and the number of documents in every affected category.

Open Settings → Archive configuration → Filing tree, compare the supplied trees, and preview the one closest to how you already divide your documents. Nothing changes until you confirm it.

When the house is sold and someone asks for the letter confirming the loan was closed, it is in 24 Loans, under its year, titled for what it is. Searching for loan closure finds it too, because plain words match the title and the letter’s text. If Suchi is not running, the same path opens in a file manager.