Practice management that lives in your inbox.
cafelite is a practice management system for South African short-term insurance brokerages, built around the mailbox you already use. It handles the worst parts of a CRM for you — filing, data capture and the FAIS compliance record — while you just keep sending email.
You run the book. It keeps the record.
Broker management systems fail because they drag brokers out of email into a workflow they resent. cafelite goes the other way: it watches the work you already do and quietly builds the client files, the policy data and the compliance record from it.
Built around your inbox
A full email client — Gmail, Outlook or any IMAP mailbox — with a context panel beside every thread: the resolved client, their active policies, recent documents and related conversations.
Filing handled for you
A silent resolution pipeline binds every synced message to the right client — by policy reference, thread history or known address. Whatever it can't place with confidence lands in the unfiled queue for a one-click 'link to client'.
A record that builds itself
Every client gets a per-account file — timeline, policies, documents, claims and audit — assembled from the mail you already send. The timeline is your FAIS Record of Advice, with no separate data entry.
PDF schedules, no re-keying
Drop in a policy schedule, or pull one straight from an email attachment. It's extracted into editable sections, risk items and extensions, matched to the right client, and becomes a structured policy on confirm.
Policy versions, never lost
Incoming schedules are matched to existing policies by number and placed on a version timeline — new, supersede, amend or historical. Every version is an immutable snapshot; nothing is ever overwritten.
Client discovery from email
New client addresses are discovered from the mail stream. Flag one as a client and mail to and from it auto-links — backfilled over history and sticky for future mail, with smart defaults that keep shared mailboxes manual.
Compose, templates & letterheads
Rich HTML compose with org-shared email templates, HTML and plain-text signatures, and generated PDF documents rendered on your own letterhead — all without leaving the thread.
Audit-proof by construction
Append-only document revisions with optional bank-grade WORM retention, versioned message-to-client links that preserve every superseded decision, and a full audit and access log on everything.
Built for the whole practice
Roles mapped to how a brokerage actually works — principal, compliance officer, front-line broker. Owners and admins get read-only, audited access to team mailboxes. Works on phones and tablets too.
See it in motion.
Every screen is designed for daily brokerage work — dense where it needs to be, calm everywhere else.
Nothing to learn. Nothing to migrate. Just connect.
Connect your mailbox
Gmail, Outlook or any IMAP account — one connection per broker, synced in the background.
Keep working in your inbox
Send and read mail as you always have. Every message files itself against the right client; the few that can't wait in the unfiled queue.
Confirm policies from PDFs
Schedules arriving by email are extracted into structured policies. Review the amounts, confirm, done — no re-keying.
Open the file when it matters
At renewal, claim or audit time the full client record — timeline, policies, documents, claims — is already there.
Real software, already in production.
What's already shipped.
cafelite isn't vapourware. Here's every milestone currently live in the product.
- 18 May 2026
CRM core
Clients, accounts and participants with encrypted PII, insurer management, and the org-scoped multi-tenant foundation everything else builds on.
- 19 May 2026
Email resolution engine
The precedence ladder that binds each synced message to a client, append-only link history, message direction, the right-rail context panel, and client discovery from email.
- 20 May 2026
Unfiled queue & manual linking
The compliance unfiled queue, one-click 'link to client' with full history, outbound capture, and a compose-time policy-number divergence check.
- 22 May 2026
Documents, WORM & extraction
Immutable append-only document storage with S3 Object Lock retention, the upload tray, PDF schedule extraction with submit → review → confirm, attachment materialisation and content-hash dedupe. Plus org email templates.
- 23 May 2026
Versioned policy storage
A canonical, versioned policy JSON store with backfill and projection, so every policy is held in a stable, portable format.
- 30 May 2026
Email rendering engine
Stored email bodies rendered to safe HTML with inline images, plus standalone attachment extraction for documents that arrive before the client exists.
- 02 Jun 2026
HTML compose, signatures & templates
A rich compose editor, HTML and plain-text signatures with images, and shared templates available even on unlinked threads.
- 03 Jun 2026
Claims & richer client timeline
Claims registered and tracked against the client file, linkable from mail, with an enriched cross-entity audit trail.
- 05 Jun 2026
Document templates & letterheads
Design document templates in-app, render them to PDF, and lay generated documents over your own uploaded letterhead — with every letterhead change audited.
- 10 Jun 2026
IMAP/SMTP support
Any standard mailbox now connects — not just Gmail and Outlook — with encrypted credentials, connection testing and background polling. Also the week the product became cafelite.
- 11 Jun 2026
Account security & hardening
Self-service password reset over transactional email, hardened CORS, and an in-app admin-consent flow for organisations that lock down Outlook access.
- 13 Jun 2026
Full Outlook mail suite
Multi-folder sync across the whole mailbox, correct move-vs-delete handling, seamless deep-history backfill as you scroll, and sending from the app.
- 13 Jun 2026
Supervisory mailbox access
Owners and admins can open and read any team member's connected mailbox — strictly read-only, with every supervisory read logged.
- 13 Jun 2026
Auto-link by flagged address
Flag a discovered address as a client and mail to and from it auto-links — backfilled over history, sticky going forward, identical across Gmail, Outlook and IMAP, and never overriding a manual decision.
- 14 Jun 2026
Policy matching & versioned promote
Incoming schedules matched to existing policies by number and promoted onto a version timeline — new, supersede, amend or historical — with staleness warnings and immutable per-version snapshots.
- 14 Jun 2026
Mobile & tablet support
First-class phone flows for mail triage, client lookup, policy detail and claims, with a bottom tab bar, slide-out drawer and a pull-up context sheet.
Where it's going.
Security & ops hardening
A full pre-launch security pass — rate limiting, session revocation, hashed tokens, real WORM retention and error monitoring — currently in final review.
Compliance audit-readiness module
Registers, representative fit-and-proper and CPD tracking, per-client completeness files, and a one-click audit pack for the day the regulator calls.
Renewals
A renewal pipeline with lead-time reminders and change-advice diffs, built on the policy version timeline.
Notifications
In-app and email notifications for renewals due, claim updates, extraction completions and task assignments.
Reporting & dashboards
Book analysis, claims ratios and premium tracking, plus a financial dashboard for principals.
Calendar sync
Google, Microsoft and IMAP calendar sync, so appointments live alongside the client record.
Keep your inbox. Lose the filing.
cafelite is live in production and onboarding SA brokerages now. If you run a short-term book from Gmail, Outlook or any mailbox, we'd love to show you around.
Request a demo →