A home inventory app for real households
Work room by room, photograph as you go, and record price paid and replacement value separately. Two hundred items is a realistic afternoon if you don't try to be exhaustive.
A home inventory is a list of what you own, what it's worth and what proves it. Most people are told to make one after something has already gone wrong, which is exactly the moment when nobody can remember what was in the spare room.
The job is far less daunting than it sounds, as long as you don't confuse it with cataloguing. You are recording the things that would be expensive, difficult or annoying to replace — not the contents of the cutlery drawer.
Start with one room
Add the room you'd least like to lose and see how quickly the rest follows.
What a home inventory app should actually do
Most spreadsheets fail on the same four points.
- Photographs attached to the item — A wide shot showing it in the room, plus a close-up of the model or serial plate.
- Proof, not just a description — Receipt, warranty and manual stored with the record so the evidence and the claim don't live apart.
- Price paid and current value kept separate — What you spent is history. What it would cost to replace changes, and conflating the two produces a number nobody can defend.
- Something you can hand over — An export you can give to an insurer, a loss adjuster or a family member without granting them access to everything else.
Building the inventory in one afternoon
Room by room, in physical order, without doubling back.
- Start with the highest-value room
Usually the living room or wherever the electronics are. Momentum matters more than completeness. - Photograph the room first
One wide shot per wall gives you context and catches the things you'd otherwise forget to list. - Record anything over your own threshold
Pick a figure — £100 is a common one — and list everything above it. Below that, group things: 'kitchen small appliances'. - Capture serial numbers as you go
Televisions, laptops, bikes, tools and appliances. It's the detail that identifies a specific object rather than a category. - Attach receipts where you have them
Where you don't, note the approximate purchase date and what you believe you paid. - Keep the record off the premises
An inventory that burns with the house has done nobody any good.
Price paid, current value and replacement cost
These are three different numbers and treating them as one is the most common mistake in home inventories. Price paid is a fact with a date on it. Current value is what the item is worth second-hand today. Replacement cost is what you'd have to spend to buy the equivalent new.
Insurers usually care about the third, and the gap can be substantial in both directions: electronics fall, furniture and jewellery often rise. Recording price paid as history and keeping a separate, dated valuation means you can say where a figure came from instead of guessing under pressure.
The moment an inventory pays for itself
A leak from a first-floor bathroom writes off a ceiling, a sofa, a rug and a television. The insurer asks for a list of damaged items with values and evidence.
From memory, that's a stressful evening and an under-claim. From an inventory with photographs, receipts and dated values, it's an export — and a conversation about the actual figures rather than about what you can prove.
What Vekrin gives you
Vekrin organises belongings by room, with photographs, receipts, documents and warranties attached to each item. Values are recorded as history rather than overwritten, so a valuation always carries a date and a source.
It's built for a household rather than a person: several people can sign in to the same home, and you can keep more than one property. When an insurer needs a record, the Insurance Inventory pack exports a clean, organised document rather than a screenshot of a spreadsheet.
- Room-by-room inventory with photographs and serial numbers
- Receipts, warranties and manuals attached to the item
- Dated valuations kept separately from the price you paid
- Insurance Inventory export, and shared access for the household
Common questions
- What should be included in a home inventory?
- Anything you would claim for or struggle to replace: electronics, appliances, furniture, jewellery, tools, bikes, musical instruments, sports equipment and collections. Group low-value belongings by category rather than listing them individually.
- How long does making a home inventory take?
- A focused afternoon covers most homes if you work room by room and set a value threshold. Adding new purchases as they arrive takes under a minute each, which is what keeps the record accurate.
- Is a spreadsheet good enough?
- It's better than nothing, but a spreadsheet separates the list from the evidence. Photographs, receipts and warranty documents are the parts that make a claim straightforward, and they need to live with the item.
- Do I need a home inventory if I'm renting?
- Yes — buildings cover is your landlord's responsibility, but the contents are yours. Tenants are the group most likely to under-insure, because it's easy to underestimate what accumulates in a few years.
Related reading
Start with one room
Add the room you'd least like to lose and see how quickly the rest follows.