Are your old business files worth money?

Project files and job folders on the server, old email, binders, manuals and training guides, call recordings and their notes. Their common thread: each shows your staff doing the work and repeating the same steps, which buyers name as the thing they want.

Put a decade-old quote, the emails about it and the final invoice in one folder and you have the full story of one job. That is exactly the format buyers look for.

A longer history means more material, and volume drives price. Three years is the common minimum, with some buyers wanting five-plus. The clearest example of a long archive is Cielo24, whose 13 years of Slack, Jira and email reportedly fetched a six-figure sum.

Statements, old checks, tax filings and payroll consist largely of personal and money details, which buyers delete instead of paying for. HR and health records are excluded outright.

1. 1

   Work records with context

   Email, jobs, tickets and procedures. This is your licensing pile.

2. 2

   Personal or financial records

   Keep these out, whatever happens.

3. 3

   Unknown drives and boxes

   Note what system or year they came from before deciding.