When an appliance fails, three questions decide whether it costs you anything: when did you buy it, can you prove it, and is the fault covered. Most households can answer none of them in under ten minutes. This kit is the ten minutes, done once.
What is in the kit
- A checklist (below, printable) for gathering the record for each appliance: where the numbers are, which dates to derive, what to photograph.
- A CSV template with one row per common appliance and ten columns, pre- filled with one worked example so the format is obvious. It opens in Numbers, Excel or Google Sheets.
- Links to the worked examples it draws on: the appliance receipt, the warranty certificate and the repair invoice, all fictional, all annotated.
Nothing here needs an account or an email address. The CSV is a plain file; the checklist prints from this page.
The ten columns, and why each one is there
| Column | Source | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Appliance | You | The plain name you will search for |
| Brand / model | Rating label, receipt | Parts, manuals, claims |
| Serial number | Rating label | Ties a claim to your unit |
| Store | Receipt | Returns and store warranties go to the seller |
| Purchase date | Receipt | Every deadline counts from it |
| Price | Receipt | Refund amount; insurance value |
| Return by | Purchase date + return window | The first deadline |
| Warranty months and ends | Warranty card + arithmetic | The second deadline |
| Receipt location | You | The claim fails without it |
| Notes | You | Repairs, extended cover, recalls |
The two derived dates are the ones people get wrong. Warranty months are calendar months: a purchase on 31 January with 6 months of warranty ends on 31 July, and with a shorter target month, on that month's last day. The purchase record builder does the arithmetic and also adds a "test everything" date 30 days before the warranty ends, which is the single best use of a warranty: find the faults while they are still free.
How to fill it in an afternoon
- Walk the house with your phone. Photograph the rating label on each appliance. That gives you brand, model and serial in one pass.
- Find the receipts. Paper in the drawer, order confirmations in email, photos in the camera roll. The guide on finding receipts in your iPhone photos covers the last one. For each receipt you find, fill the store, date and price; for each you cannot, write "unknown" and move on. An honest gap is more useful than a blank.
- Read the warranty length off the card or the manual's warranty page, and derive the two dates.
- Photograph receipt, warranty card and label together, one photo set per appliance, and write in the sheet where those photos live.
- Add the warranty end dates to your calendar, with a reminder a month before. The document expiry tracker exports them all as one calendar file.
Keeping it alive
A record that is right on the day you make it and never touched again is a record of the past. Three habits keep it current: add a row the day a new appliance arrives, add a line to Notes the day a repair happens (with the repair's own guarantee date, as on the repair invoice example), and review the sheet once a year when the contents-insurance renewal arrives, because that is when the sum insured needs the same numbers.
Or let the receipts fill the sheet
The kit is the manual method, and it works. Its weak point is step two: the receipt you photographed eighteen months ago is in a camera roll with four thousand other pictures. Paperlock takes the same photo and does the rest: reads the store, date and amount, files it under the appliance, reads the warranty end off the card, and reminds you 30 and 7 days before. The question "when did we buy the dishwasher?" then has an answer with the receipt attached, which is the row in this sheet, filled in by the document itself. The warranty returns scenario shows how the record is used on the day something breaks.