You probably remember that after Hurricane Andrew the media was filled with horror stories about people who were unable to collect from their insurance companies until they came up with complete inventories of exactly what they had lost. Even if you had tried to maintain good records, this would be a daunting task with your house lying in a heap of rubble; but how many people have actually ever compiled (and then kept updated — my downfall) an accurate inventory of all their worldly goods? One good way to do so is with a video camera, shooting the contents of each room and dictating pertinent information about each item, then storing the tape in your safe deposit box. However, you are still going to need additional information (such as the amount paid for the items and their replacement value) that you probably aren’t going to be able to come up with while the camera is rolling.
Nolo’s Personal RecordKeeper 3.0 (NPR) allows you easily to organize all of this data for storage on a floppy — saving a good deal of room in that safe deposit box — in the event of a claim. It does lots of other stuff we’ll get to in a minute, but if it gets a procrastinating homeowner to finally take a complete inventory, that feature alone is probably worth the price of the program.
NPR is a very easy-to-use database. In its earlier incarnations it was known as For the Record. I never used For the Record, but according to the manual, a few of NPR’s new features include an option to print blank worksheets, faster data entry and smaller files, and improved sorting and data retrieval capabilities.
The database is broken down into 27 categories. Categories 1 & 2 contain Vital Information, i.e. data you or your family may need on short notice, such as names of people to notify in emergencies and sources of ready cash; Categories 3-11 deal with Property and Insurance: your assets, the aforementioned inventory, insurance policies, etc.; Service Providers (12 & 13): names and information about everybody from your stockbroker to your baby-sitter; Categories 14-17 cover Debts, which include everything from tax records and credit card information to what you owe and what’s owed you; Secured Places and Things (18-20) cover such things as burglar alarms, where keys are kept, and secret hiding places (incidentally, you can lock one category at a time or even the entire database, so any of this information can be kept from prying eyes); Personal Items and Biographical Information (21-25): medical information and personal information of all kinds are kept here; and Final Plans (26 & 27), while not expected to substitute for a will, do include such things as whether you want to donate organs, be cremated or buried, and how you want your estate handled.
The 27 categories are then broken down into subcategories. For example, Category 7 — Business Interests — is broken down into Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, Limited Partnership, etc.
Obviously, entering so much data is time consuming, so I haven’t tried out all of the features of the program as of this writing. But supposedly you can calculate your net worth as well as create a list of all your assets and liabilites, and export your net worth and home inventory data to Quicken (another new feature in version 3).
The program is very intuitive, and contains good on-line help. The manual is well-written, and is divided into two sections. The first part is the User’s Guide, which I’ve rarely had to refer to, thanks to the program’s ease-of-use. Part II is the Legal Manual, and provides both legal information and helpful tips about the records kept in each of the 27 categories.
If you want to finally get your life organized, buying and using Nolo’s Personal RecordKeeper 3.0 may be a good way to start. It has motivated me to update the inventory we took several years ago, and (if I can ever get it finished) this time it should be easy to maintain.
