The family argument that happens during estate settlement isn't usually about money. It's about the sideboard. The one that was in the grandmother's kitchen for sixty years, that no one has ever discussed, that three separate family members assumed they would inherit because it was always understood. That assumption, held in parallel by multiple people with no record of what was actually decided, is the source of more estate disputes than any individual asset value warrants.
Keep for Whom
Keep for.... is the field that does the work that no other estate document typically contains: the specific assignment of specific items to specific people while the assignment can still be confirmed with the person making it. A will distributes estates in aggregate. An inventory assigns individual items at the level of "the oak sideboard from the kitchen goes to Sarah." That granularity prevents the dispute rather than arriving too late to address it.
keepsake is the binary toggle that separates items with sentimental significance from items with only financial value. A keepsake item may have negligible Approx Value but high emotional weight — the watch that was worn every day for forty years, the china set that only came out at Christmas, the silver-backed hairbrush that belonged to someone three generations back. Flagging keepsakes separately means they're handled with different care than the furniture that gets appraised and sold.
The Valuation Layer
Approx Value is the field that every estate inventory needs and most families resist completing until it's urgent. Approximate current market value per item — not insurance replacement cost, not sentimental value, not what was paid for it in 1975 — is the number that estate accounting, potential sale decisions, and tax reporting require. An inventory with photographs, descriptions, and approximate values is something an appraiser can verify and refine in a professional estate valuation. An inventory without value estimates requires starting the appraisal from scratch.
Serial Number and Model are the identification fields for items where provenance matters — firearms, watches, jewelry with hallmarks, electronics with model numbers. A Serial Number field that's populated transforms "grandmother's watch" into a specific movement with a verifiable manufacture date, which affects its market value, its insurance coverage, and its provenance documentation for eventual sale.
The Documentation That Survives
Photo is the record that survives everything else. A photograph of the item taken while it was in the home — in context, showing its actual condition — is the evidence that settles the later question of whether the item was present, what condition it was in, and whether it matches the description. For items with significant value, a photograph showing serial numbers or hallmarks is the authentication document for an insurance claim, a sale, or a family dispute.
Comments is where the history lives. The provenance note — where the item came from, who brought it into the family, what it meant to whom — is the contextual information that turns an inventory entry from a dry catalogue record into a family document. That information exists right now in the memory of the person creating the record. It won't exist in the same accessible form a decade later when the people who knew the stories are no longer available to tell them.
Category with Quantity and Description complete the structural record. Not every item is singular — a set of twelve matching chairs, a collection of first editions, a service for ten. Quantity makes the inventory count accurate and prevents the assumption that a "set" is being assigned when individual pieces are being distributed.