Guides and templates

Data room templates, folder structures and due diligence checklists.

Original resources for people creating M&A data rooms, investor data rooms, due diligence request lists and numbered folder indexes.

Browse downloadable templates Start with the folder structure guide Open the data room glossary

Decision and comparison guides

Choosing between folder structures, VDR software and Excel index workflows.

Side-by-side guides for the decisions that come up most often when planning a data room: folder structure vs VDR software, M&A vs investor rooms, Excel-first vs VDR-first indexing.

Comparison guide

Folder structure vs VDR software

Understand the difference between a data room folder structure, a VDR platform and a folder-index generator before choosing your deal workflow.

ComparingData room folder structureVirtual data room software

Comparison guide

M&A vs investor data room

Decide between an M&A folder structure and an investor data room based on deal type, audience, sensitivity and the documents diligence reviewers actually open first.

ComparingM&A data roomInvestor data room

Comparison guide

Excel index vs VDR index

Compare maintaining the data room index in Excel or CSV against building and tracking the index inside a virtual data room platform.

ComparingExcel data room indexVDR index management

Comparison guide

Data room checklist vs request list

Compare a data room checklist (the seller's prepared document list) with a buyer's diligence request list (IRL), and how to use both to run a faster sale, fundraise or lender review.

ComparingData room checklistBuyer request list (IRL)

How-to guides and templates

Step-by-step guides, checklists and folder templates.

Commercial / template search

Data room folder structure

Create a clean data room folder structure with a practical numbered template for M&A, fundraising, investor diligence and sell-side preparation.

data room folder structurem&a data room folder structure

Bottom-funnel checklist search

M&A due diligence checklist

A complete M&A due diligence checklist listing the 47 documents buyers request across corporate, financial, tax, legal, commercial, HR, IP and operations workstreams.

M&A due diligence checklistdue diligence checklist

Fundraising checklist search

Investor data room checklist

What an investor data room is and how to build one, with a practical fundraising checklist covering pitch materials, financial model, cap table, legal, product, customers and KPIs.

investor data roominvestor data room checklist

Template / Excel search

Data room index template

A free data room index template with a numbered folder example. Learn how to build an index in Excel that is easy to scan, expand and convert into folders for due diligence.

data room index templatedata room index

Setup / process search

Virtual data room setup

A practical guide to setting up a data room for a business sale, including folder structure, permissions, staging, a setup checklist and buyer-ready preparation.

data room setupsetting up a data room

Seller preparation search

Sell-side data room preparation

Prepare a sell-side data room before launching a sale process with a practical checklist for sellers, founders and advisers.

sell-side data room preparationdocument checklist for selling a business

Workstream checklist search

Legal due diligence checklist

Create a legal due diligence folder structure for corporate records, material contracts, litigation, IP, compliance and regulatory documents.

legal due diligence checklistlegal due diligence data room

Finance workstream search

Financial diligence checklist

A financial due diligence data room checklist covering historical accounts, management reporting, KPIs, debt, working capital, forecasts and tax links.

financial due diligence checklistfinancial due diligence data room

Workstream folder search

HR, commercial and tax structures

Practical folder structures for HR, commercial and tax due diligence workstreams inside an M&A or fundraising data room.

HR due diligence folder structurecommercial due diligence checklist

Business sale preparation

Prepare a sale data room

A practical guide to preparing a sell-side data room before launching a business sale process, including folders, owners, request lists and red flags.

prepare data room before selling businessselling a business data room

SME sale / practical template

SME data room structure

A focused data room structure for SMEs preparing for a sale, fundraising process or lender review without overbuilding an enterprise VDR.

SME data room structuresmall business sale data room

Advisor workflow / authority

Advisor diligence files

How M&A, legal, financial diligence and fundraising advisers organise source documents, workstreams, issue lists and buyer-facing folders.

how advisors organise due diligence filesM&A advisor data room

Which guide should I read?

Picking the right guide, checklist or template for your deal.

Six questions people ask before they pick a starting point: which guide, which template, where the index ends and the folder structure begins, and how it all connects to the Data Room Builder upload tool.

Open the builder Browse template library

Which guide or template should I start with?

If you are setting up a sell-side M&A room, start with the data room folder structure guide and the M&A due diligence checklist. For an investor raise, start with the investor data room checklist. If you already have a deal in motion and just need a numbered index, jump straight to the data room index template.

What is the difference between a data room index and a folder structure?

The data room index is the numbered map of what goes where, usually written in Excel or CSV with Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 columns. The folder structure is the physical hierarchy of empty folders the index produces. The index is how the deal team plans the room; the folder structure is what buyers, investors and lenders actually navigate inside the VDR.

Do I need a separate diligence request list, or is the folder structure enough?

Both are useful and they serve different roles. The request list is the buyer or investor's information ask; the folder structure is the seller's organised response. A clean process maps every request-list line item to a folder so coverage gaps are obvious. The financial and legal diligence checklists on this hub follow that mapping.

Are these guides written for sell-side or buy-side use?

Most of the guides are written for sell-side M&A preparation, fundraising and SME sale prep, where the team building the room is the seller or the founder. There is also a buy-side due diligence checklist for acquirer-side workflows. The underlying folder structure is portable across either side.

How do these guides and templates connect to the Data Room Builder upload tool?

Each guide gives you a checklist you can paste into Excel or CSV; each template is a ready-made spreadsheet you can download and edit. Upload either into Data Room Builder, preview the generated hierarchy and export a clean ZIP skeleton you can drop into any VDR, cloud workspace or local share.

Which sector-specific templates are available?

There are sector templates for SaaS (ARR/MRR, churn, customer cohorts), real estate (rent rolls, lease abstracts), healthcare (payor contracts, regulatory files), debt financing (collateral, debt schedules) and legal diligence. Pick the template closest to your transaction type and adapt it; each template page has FAQs and a matching folder structure.

Diligence vocabulary

Plain-English definitions for the terms used across these guides.

The guides above reference the same set of diligence terms. The glossary defines each one in practice and links back to the guides and templates that use it.

Open the data room glossary