The complete buyer-owned file should contain:
- [ ] Decision charter, alternatives and business-case baseline.
- [ ] Scope charter and regulatory-applicability register.
- [ ] Responsibility map and approved resource plan.
- [ ] Data inventory, dictionary, remediation backlog and historical-retention decisions.
- [ ] Requirements workbook, weighted scorecard and mandatory gates.
- [ ] RFP responses and normalised commercial comparison.
- [ ] Demonstration and proof-of-concept evidence.
- [ ] Security and privacy diligence with resolved exceptions.
- [ ] Three-year TCO, sensitivity analysis and funding approval.
- [ ] Executed agreement, statement of work and acceptance schedule.
- [ ] Design baseline and configuration register.
- [ ] Integration specifications and runbooks.
- [ ] Migration scripts or procedures, crosswalks and reconciliations.
- [ ] UAT, permission and regression-test results.
- [ ] Cutover, rollback and communications plans.
- [ ] Training, support and operating handover.
- [ ] Renewal calendar and tested exit pack.
Final recommendation: retain ownership of scope, data, acceptance and operation even where you buy specialist help. Do not sign until the organisation can explain both how it will get onto the platform and how it will maintain—or leave—it.