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All the Information You Need to Build Your Backplant
Apr 28, 2025
3 min read
Why Build a Title Plant Backplant?
Whether you're filling a gap in your title plant, trying to push back 30, 50, or even 100+ years to comply with state regulations, or simply enhancing your data coverage, a backplant indexing project is a strategic investment.
For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume you’re building from scratch.
If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve probably already evaluated the economic cost-benefit analysis—and you know: it’s almost always cheaper to build it yourself than to buy it.
But cheaper doesn't mean easy.
Before you dive in, here’s what you need to know to set yourself up for success.
Step 1: Get a Sense of Total Volume
The first thing you’ll need is a realistic sense of how many documents you’re dealing with.
Capture a rough count of the documents that will need to be indexed for the years you're planning to cover.
Without this step, it's almost impossible to budget time, cost, or manpower correctly—and small miscalculations can become big setbacks later.
Step 2: Inventory Your Plats
Subdivision plat maps are a key component of a usable backplant.
You'll need to figure out how many plats exist for your coverage area, how accessible they are, and how you’ll obtain high-quality copies for indexing.
Don’t overlook this step—missing plat data can leave costly gaps in your plant later.
Step 3: Source All Images
You’ll also need to identify where (and how) you’ll get the source images for all the documents you plan to index.
This can involve working with counties, third-party services, or scanning physical archives.
The quality and completeness of these images directly impact the quality of your plant.
Step 4: Choose a Title Plant Software
You’ll need a reliable title plant software system to host, manage, and search your indexed data.
Options like PropertySync and others can provide great frameworks—but the key is choosing one that fits your long-term goals for access, scalability, and ease of use.
Step 5: Decide How to Key Your Data
Once you have your images, how are you going to extract the information you need?
You typically have four options:
- In-House: Hiring and training your own indexing team.
- Outsource to a Vendor: Like D. Bello, where dedicated teams specialize in accurate backplant builds.
- Purchase Data: Riskier if you can't verify the quality.
- Mix and Match: Some firms combine outsourcing for bulk work and in-house for final QC.
Whatever you choose, make sure you fully understand the costs, timelines, and risks associated with each path.
Step 6: Build a QC Strategy
No matter how good your initial indexing is, every backplant needs a quality control process.
If you’re working with a vendor, ask them:
- How do you QC your backplant work?
- How do you document corrections?
- How quickly can you fix identified errors?
Bad data is worse than no data.
A poorly done backplant can create operational chaos, so ensuring quality upfront is non-negotiable.
A Quick Word on AI and OCR
You might be wondering: "Can’t I just use AI or OCR to speed this up?"
AI and OCR technologies can help with bulk data extraction—but they aren’t perfect.
Automated tools often misinterpret old handwriting, degraded documents, and non-standard formatting common in historical records.
Translation: You’ll still need human eyes to review, correct, and verify.
If you're going to use AI in your workflow, it should be seen as a tool to support your team—not a replacement for human judgment.
Final Thoughts
Building a backplant is a major project—but if you approach it the right way, it’s one of the most valuable investments you can make for your title company's future.
Take your time, build a strong foundation, and remember: the quality of the backplant you build today determines how efficient, accurate, and profitable your company will be tomorrow.
Need a partner who knows how to do it right?
We’ve helped companies of all sizes build backplants that last.
