How to build a household document inventory
- Tick what you have. Go group by group. Skip whole groups that do not apply — no car, no car group.
- Say where the original is. Home folder, safe, bank box, with a lawyer or relative, digital only, or honestly “not sure”. The honest answer is the useful one.
- Mark digital copies and dates. Tick “digital copy exists” only if you could find it on your phone right now. Add expiry dates for the documents that have them.
- Close the gaps. Photograph the paper-only originals, place the wandering ones, add the missing dates. Export the CSV and the calendar file when you are done.
What it does
- Catalogue of 39 household documents in 8 groups, from passports to pet vaccinations
- Per document: where the original is, whether a digital copy exists, expiry date where relevant
- Gap list: no known location, no digital copy, no expiry recorded
- Expiring-within-six-months list with a calendar export (alerts 30 and 7 days before)
- CSV export and a printable inventory for the emergency binder
- Saved in your browser’s local storage only — no account, no upload
Why an inventory before a filing system
Every guide to organizing paperwork starts with folders and labels. The step they skip is the one that matters in an emergency: knowing what documents your household actually has, where the originals are, and which ones exist only as a single piece of paper. An inventory answers those three questions in twenty minutes and shows you the gaps before a lost passport or a flooded basement does.
What the inventory covers
Thirty-nine document types in eight groups: identity, home, money, car, health, family and legal, pets, and work and education. For each one you tick whether you have it, say where the original is kept, whether a digital copy exists, and, for the dozen or so that expire, when. Nothing here is mandatory; a household with no car skips the car group.
| Group | Examples | Typical gap |
|---|---|---|
| Identity | Passports, ID cards, licences, birth and marriage certificates | Certificates exist once, on paper, in one drawer |
| Home | Lease or deed, insurance, appliance warranties, photos of valuables | No photos of valuables until after the burglary |
| Money | Account details, tax returns, pension statements, loans | Nobody else knows which accounts exist |
| Car | Title, insurance, inspection, service history | Three expiry dates in three different months |
| Health | Insurance card, vaccinations, prescriptions, directives | Vaccination records scattered across clinics |
| Family and legal | Will, power of attorney, custody papers, emergency contacts | The will is with a lawyer and nobody wrote down which one |
| Pets | Vaccination record, microchip registration, insurance | The kennel asks for the rabies certificate the night before |
| Work and education | Contract, payslips, certifications, diplomas | Diplomas needed for a visa are in another country |
The three gaps it looks for
No known location. A document you own but cannot place is, for practical purposes, a document you do not have. No digital copy. A single paper original is one flood, fire or move away from gone; a photo in a locked place on your phone is the cheapest insurance there is. No expiry date recorded. For passports, permits, insurance and inspections, the date is the whole point; the inventory asks for it and exports it to your calendar with alerts 30 and 7 days before.
What to do with the result
Print the inventory and put it in the emergency binder, or export the CSV for the household spreadsheet. Then close the gaps in order: photograph the paper-only originals first, decide where the wandering ones live, and add the missing dates. The expiry tracker takes the dated items from here if you want a running list.
Limits
The inventory is saved in this browser's local storage only. It is not shared with anyone, does not sync to another device, and disappears if site data is cleared — export the CSV once it is complete. The catalogue is a common household; yours may have documents it does not list, and the note field is there for those. If you want the digital copies to be searchable and to carry their own expiry reminders, that is what Paperlock does: photograph each paper once, and it reads, files and reminds.