In most deals the documents are not emailed around. They are shared through a virtual data room (VDR) — a controlled online space the sellers set up so that sensitive material can be examined without being handed over.
What a VDR does
- Controlled access. The sellers decide who sees which folders. A prospective buyer's technical adviser might see the architecture material but not the customer contracts; a lawyer the reverse.
- Watermarking. Downloaded and printed pages carry the reader's identity, which discourages a confidential document from traveling further than it should.
- Access logs. Every view is recorded. Sellers can see which documents a bidder's team actually read — sometimes a useful signal of how serious they are and where their concerns sit.
- Q&A in one place. Questions about a document are asked and answered next to it, so both sides keep one record of what was asked and said.
Why it matters to you now
If your deal reaches diligence, you will likely be asked to populate a VDR — and the hardest part is not the software, it is having your documents organized, current and complete when the request arrives.
That is the role your Percomb project plays while you prepare: it holds your material against the request list, shows you what is missing, and keeps everything ready to move into whichever VDR the deal ends up using. When that day comes, the folder structure of a well-kept request list maps almost one-to-one onto what the other side expects to find.