If you’re like most people, you probably have an insurance policy that covers the contents of your home or office. If you need to make a claim – whether because of a disaster, theft, or other unexpected event, the hope is that your insurance will pay you for the contents that you’ve lost. Well, that’s the hope, right?

Reality check. If you don’t have a good record of your belongings, your insurance company will likely challenge you and may not pay the claim as you’d expected. Why? They want proof of what you say you had.

Most people never get around to creating a good record of what they own – they think it takes too long and is too difficult. And the truth is, it used to be – until helpful apps came along. One great app in this category is the aptly named Home Inventory from Binary Formations. This Mac app lets you quickly and easily create an inventory of your home or office. You simply define the rooms or spaces, and take photos of the contents in each space. You can also add in warranties, receipts and notes about each item – collecting everything about your belongings in one spot.

If you have an iOS device, you can use the companion Photo Remote app to take photos and send them directly into your Home Inventory database. It can even scan barcodes and look up information on the item that’s been scanned. In the example below, I’ve scanned the barcodes on some of my comic books, and Home Inventory automatically looked up all the information about each one. This is a super-helpful feature for collections that you might have – and it saves tons of data entry time.

Even though it’s called “Home Inventory,” you can definitely use it to keep a record of the contents of your office as well. You’d just define your office as a space or a room in the database.

As I said, creating an inventory of your belongings is essential. You can just take photos of everything, but using an app like Home Inventory makes the process smoother, easier, and better organized.

If you’re wondering how to implement an inventory strategy, we’d be happy to chat with you. Contact us for a complimentary strategy session by going to http://www.customlivingsolutions.com/Apply

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