For owners
Closing, closed or sold: the records may still be worth something.
AI developers license real companies' de-identified operating and financial records, email and documents, including those of companies that have closed. FirmLedge works out what survives and who controls it, describes the records to several buyers without naming the company, and shows you every proposal before you decide.
No files, financial figures, logins or customer names to begin. The assessment is not a valuation or an offer.
For estates and advisers
Administering an estate, receivership or assignment?
Trustees, receivers, assignees and their counsel have their own page: how a sale or license would run for an estate, what stays out from the start, and a short fit check. The first step is a one-page records assessment we prepare from the docket and public filings, at no charge.
Closing or closed
Before the systems are shut off.
When a company closes, its records are usually the last thing anyone has time for. The accounting and job systems are about to be shut off, software subscriptions lapse, and the people who know where everything is move on. What is left sits in a vendor's cloud, on a backup drive or in storage.
Those records can still be licensed after a company closes, where someone with authority can approve it and the systems or exports survive. If a shutoff or a subscription lapse is coming, tell us the date. An export taken before it keeps the option open.
- operating systems
- ERP or MRP data: orders, purchasing, inventory and cost accounting, production and quality
- accounting
- General ledgers and sub-ledgers, trial balances and month-end close files
- email and documents
- The email, documents and reporting around the work
Sold
What the buyer did not take.
A sale can leave the seller holding records the buyer did not take: older years, a retired product line, a division that was closed rather than sold, or the books of the entity that remained after closing.
The purchase agreement decides what you kept and what you may do with it. Your counsel reads it first, and we work from what it allows.
Operating
Operating companies, case by case.
Operating companies are considered case by case. Most buyer requests today are for complete, multi-year archives.
The sectors we work in: industrial, manufacturing, food and agricultural, distribution and service businesses; finance and professional firms through their estates or advisers; other categories case by case.
Who pays FirmLedge
Every offer, with our compensation beside it.
You see all offers we receive for the agreed package before you decide, with our compensation and who pays FirmLedge disclosed alongside them. The work, our role and compensation are agreed in writing before engagement.
Where a buyer engages FirmLedge to source records, the buyer pays FirmLedge and you pay no FirmLedge fee. FirmLedge does not buy or resell the records or take a principal position in them.
No files first
Request a one-page assessment.
Describe the systems, years, approximate counts and workflow connections. Note exclusions and who can authorize the work. Estimates are fine.
The assessment is prepared at no charge. It is not a valuation or an offer. You get an initial reply within two business days, and the assessment within five business days of a description we can work from, or a note on what is missing. See a fictional example of the assessment.
This inquiry does not authorize access to or disclosure of company records.
Administering an estate, receivership or assignment? Use the estates fit check.
Prefer email or a call?
[email protected]
(312) 291-1954
How release approval works
Separate permission to prepare and release.
Preparation access does not authorize evaluation, licensing or onward disclosure. The NDA and access terms define the records, people, systems and locations permitted for preparation.
You review the exact package, exclusions, recipients and uses before release. Required preparation, checks and limitations are documented.
The approved version and permissions stay with the delivery record. Material changes require the review and approval set out in the written agreement.
What is removed, what stays
Reduce identifying detail. Preserve useful relationships.
Personal and identifying information is removed or replaced under a process you approve before evaluation, training, product use or any other agreed use.
If a buyer performs extraction or de-identification, raw-record access requires a separately approved handling agreement limited to those steps. Any other use requires separate release approval and agreed terms.
The agreed preparation may remove or replace names, contact details, bank and tax identifiers and other personal information while preserving invoice and payment links, reconciliations and timing where appropriate. The parties agree who performs the preparation, with which tools and in which locations. FirmLedge coordinates that process and your review of the proposed release.
What we will tell you plainly
Removing names does not guarantee anonymity. Distinctive figures can still identify a business or person. Release review may require further preparation, restricted access or declining a package.
What stays out from the start
- Personnel, payroll and timekeeping files.
- Biometric time-clock data.
- Bank and card data.
- Government IDs, I-9s and medical notes.
- Privileged legal files.
- Customer-owned patterns and drawings.
- Export-controlled data.
- Records covered by NDAs or vendor terms that bar the use.
- Anything a court order did not preserve.
Customer, borrower and patient information requires specific rights and privacy review; owner approval alone is not enough. You and your counsel can add to the list.
Who you would be dealing with
Andrew Gallagher, founder.
My background is in private equity at SNH Capital Partners and investment banking at Wells Fargo Securities. I lead the work from the first conversation through release approval, with specialist review where needed.
Much of that work involved organizing company records, reconciling figures and understanding what the numbers meant. I bring those skills, along with my work on financial tasks for AI training and evaluation, to preparing useful data.
FirmLedge is early-stage. You can inspect a fictional records package and the fictional example assessment, and I can walk you through them before you decide.
Prefer to talk? Call Andrew at (312) 291-1954.
Questions owners ask
Before you get in touch.
How might buyers use the records?
Does the owner pay FirmLedge?
How are terms agreed?
Is my company a fit?
Does FirmLedge buy or resell the records?
Who can authorize a license?
Who sees my raw records?
What is in the one-page assessment?
Can I say no later?
No files first
Request a one-page assessment.
Tell us your name, email and company. Add a description of the systems and years that survive. The assessment is prepared at no charge, and it is not a valuation or an offer.