Docs Only Mode and Citations
When you've uploaded documents to the AI Chat page, you can turn on "Docs Only" mode to make the AI answer strictly from what's in those documents, with every claim traced back to its source.
Turning it on
The "Docs Only" toggle sits near the upload area on the AI Chat page (Sidebar > AI Chat).
- If you haven't uploaded any documents yet, the toggle is disabled and shows a tooltip: "Upload documents to enable Docs Only mode".
- Once at least one document is uploaded, the toggle becomes available, with the tooltip "Restrict AI to uploaded documents only".
If you turn Docs Only on but then remove all your documents (or never had any), a warning banner appears above the chat: "Docs Only is on but no documents uploaded." If you ask a question in that state, the AI won't attempt an answer, it responds with a fixed message asking you to upload a PDF, DOCX, CSV, or other supported document first.
How answers are grounded
With Docs Only enabled, the AI is instructed to end every factual sentence with a citation back to the specific uploaded document it came from, and to refuse outright rather than answer from general knowledge. Before the reply ever reaches you, Accupe runs it through two automatic checks: first, that citation markers are actually present and cover most of the answer (more than 40% of the answer's factual sentences arriving with no citation fails this check); second, that the key facts, names, and figures in the reply genuinely appear in your uploaded content. If the first check fails, you'll see "Docs Only Mode - response blocked." instead of an answer. If the second check fails, you'll see "Docs-Only verification failed.", along with a short list of the specific terms Accupe couldn't confirm in your documents. Either way, the unverified answer is withheld rather than risk showing you an ungrounded claim.
In the chat, citations don't appear as raw "[CITE:1]"-style text. Accupe renders them as small superscript numbers next to the relevant sentence, and adds a compact "Sources" line underneath the answer that names the exact document each number refers to, so you never have to guess or remember upload order yourself. Worth knowing: once a session holds more than one document, or a single long document, Accupe retrieves the most relevant excerpts for your specific question rather than re-reading the whole thing every time, so the numbering follows that retrieval order rather than strictly the order you uploaded the documents in. The "Sources" line is what tells you, definitively, which document backs which number.
When to use it
Turn Docs Only on when accuracy against a specific source matters more than breadth, for example when you want the AI to summarise a contract, a scanned engagement letter, or a set of client-provided accounts without it filling in any gaps from general knowledge. Leave it off for broader questions that should draw on your live firm data as well as any documents you've attached.
If verification keeps failing
If you consistently see "Docs-Only verification failed." or "Docs Only Mode - response blocked.", check the document's badge in the document tray first. A "No text" badge means Accupe never had anything to work with, most commonly because the file was a PowerPoint presentation, or an older binary .doc or .xls file, none of which Accupe currently extracts text from (see the "Uploading and Analysing Documents" article). No amount of rephrasing will fix that, you'll need to re-upload the content as a PDF, .docx, or .xlsx. If the document did extract text successfully, the failure usually means the source was a scanned image with imperfect OCR, or the answer genuinely isn't in the document. Try rephrasing your question to stick closely to wording that appears in the document, or check that the extracted content is what you expect.
Note: Docs Only mode only affects the AI Chat page. The AI Assistant side panel doesn't support document upload at all, so this mode has nothing to apply to there.