Start a Deal by Email

Every DocJacket organization has a new-deal address. Forward a signed contract to it and DocJacket reads the contract and sets up the deal for you. There's no upload screen to open and nothing to type.

Find your new-deal address

Open Inbox. At the top of the page, next to Start a deal from a signed contract, is your address. It looks like this:

your-company-newdeal@intake.docjacket.com

Click the copy button next to it, and save it as a contact in your email so it's easy to forward to.

Two different intake addresses

Your intake address, without -newdeal, is a catch-all: anything sent there lands in your Inbox for you to file by hand (see Getting Email into DocJacket). Only the new-deal address reads the contract and starts a deal.

Can I change my forward-to address so it doesn't have my name in it?

No. The new-deal address isn't something you type in. It is your organization's subdomain plus -newdeal (for example your-company-newdeal@intake.docjacket.com), and DocJacket uses that same pattern to route the email back to your organization. The subdomain was chosen when the account was set up, and often comes from the account owner's name, which is why a name can appear in it. Settings > Organization shows it but has no way to edit it, and renaming your organization doesn't change it. See Can I change my DocJacket subdomain?.

If the address looks too personal to hand out, save it in your email as a contact with a name of your choice, such as "Start a deal", and forward to that. Only the contact's display name changes. The address behind it stays the same.

What to send

• Attach the signed contract as a PDF. Use a purchase agreement or a listing agreement with the property address on it.
• Forwarding an email "as an attachment" works too. If you use Forward as attachment in Gmail or Outlook, or your scanner sends the scan inside an email, DocJacket opens that forwarded email and reads the PDFs inside it.
• You can attach more than one PDF, for example the contract and its disclosures. DocJacket reads them as one packet, takes the deal's details from the contract, and files every attachment on the new deal.
• An amendment or disclosure on its own doesn't start a deal. Forward those to the deal instead.

What happens next

DocJacket reads the contract, which usually takes a minute or two. While it reads, your team's notification says Reading the contract from …. Then one of three things happens: the deal is created, a proposal waits for your approval, or you're told why no deal could be started.

Sent by someone on your team: the deal is created

When the email comes from an active member of your organization, and DocJacket can set the deal up on its own, it creates the deal. It fills in the address, parties, price and dates from the contract, and files the email and its attachments on the deal.

• DocJacket doesn't guess which side you represent. It asks you (see below).
• Playbooks are never applied automatically. DocJacket suggests one, and you decide.
• A contract whose closing date is more than 30 days in the past is filed as a Closed deal instead of a live one, so you don't get a deal full of overdue deadlines.

Anything else: a proposal for you to approve

Sometimes DocJacket won't create the deal on its own. It makes a proposal instead, and the proposal says why. The reasons:

• The sender isn't an active member of your organization, for example the other agent or a lender.
• One of the attached documents couldn't be read.
• An attached document names a different property.
• The property address couldn't be read from the contract itself.
• A deal at this address already exists. The proposal names the existing deal so you can file the email there instead, and DocJacket asks Create a second deal anyway? before it creates another one. It recognizes the property even when your deal stores just the street line and the contract has the full address.
• The contract has date terms that need a person to review them.

Nothing is lost either way: the contract has been read, and approving the proposal creates the deal. Proposals also appear in the Review queue (the document-tasks icon in the top bar), and on the email in your Inbox.

When no deal can be started

If DocJacket can't start a deal from the email, it tells you why with a notification. It never just stays quiet. Each notification opens the email in your Inbox.

Notification	What it means	What to do
We didn't find a PDF in a forwarded email	The email had no PDF attached, and none inside a forwarded email either	Attach the signed contract as a PDF and send it again
We didn't find a contract in a forwarded email	The PDFs were read, but none of them is a purchase or listing agreement, for example only an addendum	Forward the signed contract. Send amendments and disclosures to the deal instead
We couldn't find the property address	The contract was read, but it has no address DocJacket could use	Check the contract has the property address filled in, or create the deal by hand
We couldn't read a forwarded contract	The document couldn't be read, even after DocJacket tried again	Open the email in your Inbox and use Read it again, or send a clearer copy

If the document reader has a brief hiccup, DocJacket tries again on its own a few minutes later before it tells you it couldn't read the contract.

The new-deal pop-up

Each new deal and proposal is brought to you in a pop-up the next time you're in DocJacket, or straight away if you're already signed in.

For a proposal, choose the side to approve it:

1. If the contract is old, choose File as closed record or Create as live deal.
2. Click Buyer, Seller, or Not sure yet. This creates the deal.
3. Or click Reject if it shouldn't be a deal, or Open in Review to look at it there first.

For a deal that was created for you, click Buyer, Seller, or Not sure yet.

Then the playbook. When your organization has a playbook that fits the deal, DocJacket offers it by name: click Apply playbook to set up its tasks and deadlines, or Not now. When nothing fits exactly, the pop-up points you to the deal, where you can pick one with Apply Playbook.

Good to know:

• Later hides the pop-up for the rest of your session. It comes back next time until someone deals with it, and the item stays in your bell and in the Review queue.
• When several are waiting, the pop-up shows and N more waiting and takes you through them one at a time.
• Everyone who's notified sees the same pop-up, but the first answer counts. If a teammate has already set it up, you'll see who did it and the pop-up moves on.
• If your plan's deal limit stops a proposal from becoming a deal, the pop-up says so.

Who is notified

• The sender, if they're a member of your organization.
• Every owner, admin, and transaction coordinator in your organization.
• Brokers are notified only about contracts they forwarded themselves.

Each of them gets a bell notification, New deal from email needs review or New deal created from email (or one of the notifications above when no deal could be started), and an email if Transaction updates is turned on under Settings › Notifications.

A team member who can't approve deals still sees the pop-up for a contract they sent. It tells them an admin needs to approve it.

Limits

• 15 emails per sender per day go to the new-deal address. Past that, the email is still filed in your Inbox, and you can read it later with Read this contract.
• Reading a contract uses your plan's AI extraction allowance. If you've reached it, the email in your Inbox says This contract wasn't read automatically, and Read this contract works again once your allowance frees up.
• When several PDFs arrive together, the deal's details come from the contract. The other documents are filed on the deal, but their details aren't applied.

Troubleshooting

What you see	Why	What to do
We didn't find a PDF or We didn't find a contract	No PDF arrived, or only an amendment or disclosure	Forward the signed contract as a PDF. See When no deal can be started
Nothing happened at all, not even a notification	Check you sent it to the new-deal address (with -newdeal), not your plain intake address	Resend it to your new-deal address
The email says This contract wasn't read automatically	Your plan's AI extraction limit was reached, or more than 15 were sent from one address that day	Click Read this contract on the email (for the extraction limit, once it frees up or after upgrading)
A proposal instead of a deal	See the reasons above	Pick the side in the pop-up, or approve it in the Review queue
The deal was created as Closed	The contract's closing date is more than 30 days past	That's expected for back-filing an old deal; change the status on the deal if it's still active