M&A due diligence software and the data room get bought as one thing and do two different jobs. The room stores documents and controls who can open them. The tracker holds the request list: hundreds of items, each with a category, an owner, a due date and a state. Some rooms include a tracker and some trackers are separate; what matters is that somebody owns the chase, because the chase is where the money goes.
What the tracker actually has to do
Show what is outstanding, whose it is, and how long it has been outstanding, on one screen that both sides can read. That is nearly the whole requirement. Systems that add scoring, risk ratings and workflow states are usually adding fields nobody updates during the phase when everybody is busiest.
One owner per category on each side
Financial, legal, commercial, technology and human resources each need a name on both sides. Without it every unanswered item is somebody's second priority, which is exactly how a six-week phase becomes eleven weeks without anybody having made a decision to extend it.
The cost of the chase, measured
On this site's worked example, 180 requests at 62% answered leaves 68.4 open; chasing each at 0.4 hours a week over six weeks is 164.16 hours and $15,595.20 at $95 an hour, which is $228 per request left open. That figure ends the argument about whether to push the seller harder faster than any amount of discussion.
Whether to buy one at all
Below a few hundred requests a shared sheet with five columns works, provided the columns are owner, due date, state, category and the last chase date. What a sheet cannot do is show the seller the same list you are looking at, and on a contested process that shared view is worth the licence on its own.
Questions people ask about m&a due diligence software
Is diligence software the same as a data room?
No. The room stores documents; the tracker holds the request list with owners and dates. Some rooms include a tracker.
Do we need one for a small deal?
Below a few hundred requests a shared sheet works, as long as it has owner, due date, state, category and last-chase columns.
What does chasing cost?
$228 per request left open for six weeks on the worked example, and $15,595.20 across a list of 180 that is 62% answered.