Why Is a Data Room Index Important?

Jul 20 ‘22 6 min read

We all love when things are in order — everything is in its place and accessible at any time. Working in this kind of environment is easy and supports the workflow. So, why wouldn’t we use this sort of structure in our file systems? This is what data room indexes are for. 

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What is a data room index?

A data room index is a table of contents for your data room. It is a list of all the documents, folders that are inside of your virtual data room

A well-organized data room index can save you a lot of time and money. It is a map of where your most important documents are, so it is important to take care of them. A data room index can be compared to a table of contents in a book because it illustrates what kind of structure is inside of your VDR and where it can be accessed. 

virtual data room index

Tips for organizing a proper data room index

There are a couple of things that you could do to make your data room index more organized:

  • Step 1. Create a few top-level folders. This creates an overbearing structure.
  • Step 2. Make sure your sub-folders are detailed, and you know what is inside of them. The structure needs to be filled with readable folders.
  • Step 3. Naming should support your system, not make it more difficult. So, to make those folders more readable, use a naming system that will help facilitate that.

If you follow these steps, you should be able to organize your data room index. Let’s now learn why using a virtual data room can be beneficial.

Why use a virtual data room?

Using a virtual data room comes with many advantages, including:

  • Bank-grade security features. The most important company files are kept in safe, online storage.
  • Time and money cuts. You don’t have to store your documents in a physical space — which incurs multiple additional expenses. 
  • Easy communication within the data room. Through a variety of comments and Q&A tools, you can get the point across much more quickly. 
  • Indexing services offered by the best virtual data room service providers. Visit our main page to check out what those leading virtual data room providers are. 

As you can see, some providers already include indexing in their services. Indexing is best explained in an example of a data room for due diligence

Due diligence and a data room index

There are loads of documents needed for due diligence. Preparing each of them is time-consuming, but bundling it with an unclear structure could result in a disaster. This is the list of the most common:

  • Structure of company and legal 
  • Trade register data 
  • Licenses, approvals, or certificates
  • Shareholder files 
  • History of the corporation
  • Documents of incorporation
  • By-laws
  • Lists of shareholders
  • Intellectual property and trademarks documents
  • Customer contracts
  • List of the company’s biggest customers or channels
  • Supplier agreements
  • List of employees
  • Contracts of head employees
  • Working contract files
  • CVs of personnel
  • List of all lease agreements
  • Company guarantees
  • Financing agreements
  • Insurance policies
  • Audited financial statements
  • Current business plan
  • Tax returns

This is a lot of data to go through. If you had a clear structure created to support all of those files, managing due diligence would be almost effortless. This is why creating a data room index is so important. The list above will guide you through creating convenient files and folder structures.

Wrapping up

Handling your company’s documentation may be a tiresome task. However, creating a structure to support this task might be a solution you have not thought of. If you follow our guide on how to create such a structure, we are sure that you will be able to combat any organizational task. And if your company needs to conduct due diligence, you will already know how to order your documents to make them accessible to authorized users.

FAQ

A data room index is a data room table of contents listing all the files on the platform. It makes the storage well-structured and easy to manage, and data retrieval instantaneous regardless of the number of documents.
To create a neat data room index, users should organize the data room layout — e.g., the table of contents or the tree of folders and subfolders. Then, they should create top-level folders and subfolders for each deal stage or topic to keep information consistent and make navigation easy.
The due diligence index is the data room table of contents created for the due diligence procedure. Since due diligence involves hundreds of documents and dozens of participants, the parties need a logical and consistent due diligence data room index to streamline all stages of the deal.
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Elisa
Cline

Marketing specialist at datarooms.org

Elisa is a marketing specialist with 15 years of experience. She worked for many VDR brands and gained insider knowledge of the industry.

At DataRooms.org, Elisa conducts marketing research, develops content plans, supervises content teams, and develops VDR review methodology. She envisions her mission as distributing accurate knowledge of virtual data rooms.

“My mission is to deliver accurate and relevant knowledge of virtual data rooms to as many people as possible.”

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