The present invention provides for automated capture of metadata associated with paper-based documents. A “reservation” for the metadata and a digital image of the paper-based document is created whenever a digital image of a paper-based document is to be associated with a computer record. The relevant metadata is automatically captured from a computer screen and is then stored in a previously created database record associated with the reservation. The metadata can also be associated with a later-captured digital image of the paper-based document by placing a label on the paper-based document. The label contains identifying information for the reservation and this information becomes embedded in the digital image of the paper-based document, which is subsequently created by scanning the paper-based document and label. The subsequently created digital image can then be related to the appropriate metadata by extracting the reservation identification information from the label embedded in the digital image.