Company data inventory template you can copy
The short answer
An inventory needs one row per tool: tool, admin, rough size, years, language, rights note. micro1's David Revland described a manifest form in an undated forum talk that asks which services you use and rough sizes. Use this template and update it when a program sends its actual form.
The goal is a sheet you can finish in an afternoon and hand to a buyer, a marketplace or your lawyer. It's a spreadsheet, and it's the least glamorous step in the whole process.
What goes in each column?
| Tool | Admin | Rough size | Years | Main language | Rights note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Workspace (example row) | Name of the admin | GB, from the Apps usage report | Oldest to newest year | English share, roughly | Who owns the files, any client terms |
| Slack (example row) | Name of the owner | Ask the buyer how it sizes chat | Oldest to newest year | English share, roughly | Shared channels, notices to staff |
Copy this line into a spreadsheet as the header row:
Tool,Admin,Rough size (GB),First year,Last year,Main language,English share (%),Rights notemicro1's David Revland, who works on human data, gave Google Workspace, Slack, project management tools and GitHub as examples of tools the manifest asks about, in an undated recorded forum talk.
Where do the sizes come from?
- Google Drive: in the Admin console, Reporting, User Reports, Apps usage shows "Drive storage used (MB)" per user. Google says the user reports for Drive leave out shared drives (Google Workspace Admin Help).
- SharePoint and OneDrive: the Microsoft 365 admin center, Reports, Usage, has a SharePoint site usage report and a OneDrive usage report, both with "Storage used (MB)" (Microsoft Learn).
- Slack: the export help page says who can export and which conversations each plan covers, and it gives no size figure (Slack help).
The storage page turns these into a total, and the Drive page goes deeper on Google.
What do years and language add?
micro1 asks about language, and the calculators from Troveo and Handshake AI ask about years. micro1's pages ask for primarily English documentation and give no percentage.
History length gets its own column because those calculators weigh how far back each tool goes. My years page and English page carry the sources.
Does a ready inventory speed up a valuation?
Polyshares says so. Ryan Lock, a managing partner at Polyshares, wrote that a missing inventory is a common snag before a valuation (X article). He asks owners to list each tool, the years they can export from it, and the total size in TB, messages or another unit.
He also says a long history may earn less credit than it seems. In his example, a company that switched between Slack, WhatsApp and Discord over ten years got full credit for the last two. That is one buyer's account of its own method, so add a note for each tool switch and the date of the move.
What belongs in the rights note?
Record facts only: who created the files, whether clients or partners appear in them, which contracts cover them and which notices staff received.
The rights check asks about the contracts and staff messages behind those facts, and the readiness checklist shows how the sheet fits. The managed readiness service can fill it in with you and never touches your data.
Talk to a privacy or commercial lawyer in your state before you sign.
micro1 may pay us a referral fee if a company we introduce goes ahead with it. How we are paid
Apply to micro1's data partnership (paid link)micro1's own data-partnerships pagePaid link. How we are paid
Vaultfish helps you run the process. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. If you need counsel who knows this area, we can point you to one. Ask for a referral
