August 3, 2026 – eRecording Glossary: Key Terms Every Submitter and County Recorder Should Know
If you work with land records, whether you're a title company submitting documents or a county recorder receiving them, you've probably run into terms that don't have obvious definitions. This glossary breaks down the core vocabulary of eRecording in plain language, so you know exactly what you're talking about (and what your software is actually doing).
Bookmark this page. We'll keep adding to it as new terms come up.
eRecording is the process of submitting land title documents like deeds, mortgages, and liens to a county recorder's office electronically instead of in person or by mail.
eRecording software like Hopdox transmits the document, collects the required fees, and returns a recorded copy, usually within minutes to hours instead of days. It replaces the older workflow of printing, mailing, or hand-delivering documents to the recorder's office.
e-filing is the electronic submission of court documents to a court system.
It's easy to confuse with eRecording, but the two serve different offices entirely: e-filing goes to courts, while eRecording goes to county recorder or land records offices. If your document needs to go on the public land record (a deed, mortgage, or lien), that's eRecording— not e-filing.
Submitter
A submitter is a title company, law firm, bank, or contractor that sends documents to be recorded.
Submitters are one of the two core audiences in the eRecording industry, alongside county recorders. Submitters prioritize speed, accuracy, and cost per transaction, since recording delays can hold up closings and disbursements.
Originator
An originator is the party responsible for creating and initiating a document for recording.
The term is often used interchangeably with submitter, though originator can also refer to a mortgage originator, which is a role further upstream in the lending process, before a document ever reaches title or recording.
Auto-Indexing
Auto-indexing is the automated extraction of key data points like grantor/grantee names, dates, and legal descriptions) from a document, replacing manual data entry.
Auto-indexing exists to solve a simple problem: manual indexing is slow and error-prone. Hopdox's AI-powered auto-indexing reads incoming documents and pulls the required fields automatically, which cuts both processing time and the kind of indexing errors that lead to rejections.
County Recorder
A county recorder is the government official or office responsible for maintaining public land records for a county, including recording deeds, mortgages, and liens.
County recorders are risk-averse and trust-driven by nature. Their job is to protect the integrity of the public record, so accuracy and security matter more to them than speed alone.
Recording Fee
A recording fee is the fee a county charges to record a document, separate from any software or platform fee.
Recording fees are set by each county and vary based on document type, page count, and location. Hopdox charges no license fees on top of standard recording fees. You pay the county's fee and Hopdox's transaction fee, nothing more.
Cover Sheet
A cover sheet is a standardized page attached to a document before recording, summarizing key details to help the recorder's office process it correctly.
Cover sheet requirements vary by county. Some require specific fields, formatting, or placement. Getting the cover sheet wrong is one of the more common reasons a document gets rejected before it's ever recorded.
Turnaround Time
Turnaround time is the time between submitting a document for eRecording and having it officially recorded by the county.
Turnaround time is one of the most common comparison points submitters use when evaluating eRecording software, since faster recording means faster closings and fewer delays downstream. It only takes a few minutes to prepare and submit a document through Hopdox. After that, the document is sent to the county, and turnaround time varies county to county. Most documents are recorded within a few minutes to a day or two.
Have a Term We Should Add?
If there's a piece of eRecording terminology you'd like explained, let us know. We're building this glossary out as an ongoing resource.