Article

Your SOPs and training manuals are a record

By TrustPast

Updated November 7, 2026

Every trade company that has grown past a few trucks has written down how it works. Sometimes it is a binder in the shop. Sometimes it is a shared folder called Training, or a laminated card on a van’s visor. This page settles whether those documents count as a record a buyer pays for, what they look like in an HVAC, roofing or plumbing company, what to gather, and what stays behind.

The short answer

They count. micro1 licenses de-identified company records to train AI models, and it names this kind of document directly. Its data partnerships page says it is looking for “data that reflects how work is actually performed within an organization.” The next sentence lists “standard operating procedures (SOPs), process documentation, internal knowledge bases, workflows, templates, operational frameworks, and other business process artifacts.”

That is the start-up checklist, the tear-off procedure, the new-hire manual and the script the dispatcher reads from. In brick-and-mortar words: the buyer wants how the work was done, how a repair was diagnosed and how a job was run. It does not want who the customer was or what they paid.

The cornerstone page on what data buyers want from a trade business covers estimates, job notes and change orders. This page covers the documents that sit behind all of them: the written rules for doing the work.

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What these documents are in a trade business

Most owners don’t call them SOPs. They call them the checklist, the binder, the way we do it. Here are four, from four kinds of shop. Each is a hypothetical, and each description is our own.

An HVAC start-up checklist. A residential HVAC company with 45 staff hands every installer a two-page sheet for commissioning a new system. Check the line voltage. Confirm the breaker size against the nameplate. Weigh in the charge, or check superheat and subcooling against the manufacturer’s chart. Measure static pressure. Record the temperature split. Photograph the data plate. Sign and date. The sheet is filled in on every install and filed with the job.

A roofing tear-off procedure. A roofing company with 60 staff has a written procedure for a residential tear-off. Set up fall protection before anyone goes on the roof. Tarp the landscaping. Position the dumpster. Strip to the deck in sections, never more than the crew can dry in that day. Inspect the deck and mark the soft sheets. Call the office before replacing more than the estimate allowed. Run the magnet sweep twice before the crew leaves.

A plumber’s new-hire manual. A plumbing company with 35 staff gives each new apprentice a manual. It covers the truck stock list, the rules for shutting off water before any work, how to test for gas after a water heater swap, which jobs need a permit and who pulls it, and when to call a lead before quoting. The back half is a ride-along log the lead signs each week.

A service call script. The same companies all have one, whether they wrote it or not. The dispatcher’s script for a no-heat call asks whether the thermostat is on, whether the filter was changed, whether there is a smell of gas. It sorts the call into emergency, same day or next available. The technician’s script at the door covers the greeting, the diagnosis, the options and how to present them.

None of those are paperwork for its own sake. Each one is a company’s answer to a question it got wrong once.

Why a buyer values how work is done

micro1’s page says what makes a dataset more valuable: it captures “real operational expertise, decision-making processes, and repeatable workflows.” A procedure is a repeatable workflow written down. A checklist is the same workflow with a place to sign.

In our reading, the value is in three things a procedure holds that a job file usually doesn’t.

The order of the steps. A tear-off procedure says fall protection comes before anything else, and the deck inspection comes before the new underlayment. A job note rarely says why one step comes before the next. The procedure does.

The decision points. The start-up checklist says what to do when the static pressure reads high. The new-hire manual says when an apprentice stops and calls a lead. The service script says which answers turn a routine call into an emergency. Each of those is a decision written down before it had to be made.

The reasons. Good procedures carry a line of why. In the hypothetical tear-off procedure above, “never strip more than you can dry in today” would be there because a crew once left a deck open before a storm. That sentence is years of roofing in one line.

Put the procedure next to the job files and you get both halves. The checklist says what should happen on a start-up. The filled-in sheets from every install since show what did happen, and where the crews skipped a step or found something the checklist didn’t expect. Our page on job files and work orders covers that second half in detail.

What micro1 publishes about this kind of record

Here is what micro1 says in its own words, with nothing added.

It names SOPs in two places. Its eligibility answer lists “internal communications, SOPs, project histories, CRM records, support tickets, and other business documentation.” Its list of six areas puts “Operational SOPs” first under operations and logistics, and “SOPs” under finance and accounting.

It names the neighbours of SOPs too. “QA processes” and “knowledge management” sit under customer support. “Playbooks” sits under sales and CRM. “Compliance procedures” sits under legal and contracts. In our reading, in a trade company the QA process is the inspection checklist. The playbook is the sales script for a replacement system. The compliance procedures are the safety program.

It looks for “established companies with 30+ full-time employees, mature business operations, and substantial historical operational data.” It says there is no fixed minimum number of files and that “companies with several years of records across multiple business systems are generally a stronger fit.”

It says what decides compensation: “dataset size and volume, workflow complexity, data quality, domain expertise represented, and the uniqueness of the operational knowledge contained within the dataset.” Its estimate page adds that the final payout depends on “data sources, volume, quality, access terms, and due diligence.”

micro1 does not publish what a manual on its own is worth, and we don’t guess. It prices each company.

The record most owners forget: training sign-offs

Some of these documents exist because the law says so. A roofer is the clearest case.

The federal fall protection rule for construction, 29 CFR 1926.503, says “The employer shall provide a training program for each employee who might be exposed to fall hazards.” It requires a “written certification record” with the name or other identity of the employee trained, the date of the training, and the signature of the trainer or the employer. It says “The latest training certification shall be maintained.” It also lists when retraining is required, such as when changes in the workplace make the earlier training obsolete.

So a roofing company that has done this for years holds a training program, a stack of signed certifications and a trail of retraining. In our reading, the certifications on their own are thin: a name, a date, a signature. The training program itself is the part that shows how the work is done. The retraining record is the part that shows what changed.

The name on each certification is personal information. It is not how the work was done. It goes on the list of things to raise with micro1, under what is never included below.

Old versions are the record

Most owners would hand over the current manual and throw away the rest. Keep the rest.

A procedure with many versions shows how the company learned. Take a hypothetical HVAC company. Its first start-up checklist might be half a page. A later version adds the static pressure reading after a run of callbacks on undersized ductwork. Another adds the data plate photo after a warranty claim went nowhere. Each change has a reason, and the reason is usually in an email or a meeting note from the same month.

The same goes for the service script. The version from before the company started asking about gas smell on every no-heat call is part of the story. So is the note that explains why it was added.

micro1 publishes data quality as one factor in what it pays. It does not publish a rule on old versions. Our own reading is that the old version next to the new one is the most useful pair in the folder; micro1 decides what it licenses. For the wider question of years, see how many years of records count.

What to gather

Here is an inventory to run before you apply, as our own advice. For each item, note where it lives, which format it is in, and how many years it goes back.

Written procedures. The SOP binder, the shared folder, the procedures inside your field software’s forms. Every version you can find.
Checklists, blank and filled in. The blank start-up sheet and the filled-in ones attached to each job. The blank one is the rule. The filled-in ones are the practice.
Training manuals. The new-hire manual, the apprentice workbook, the ride-along log, the slide deck from the Monday safety meeting.
Scripts. The dispatcher’s call-sorting script, the technician’s in-home script, the follow-up call after a replacement, the script for a warranty call.
The safety program. The written fall protection plan, the job hazard analyses, the toolbox talk topics, the retraining notes.
Templates. The proposal template with its standard exclusions, the inspection report form, the punch list form, the closeout letter.
The changes. The emails, chat threads and meeting notes where someone said the procedure was wrong and how it should change. Those are the reasoning.

Check the old systems too. A company that moved from paper forms to tablets has the paper forms in a box and the tablet forms in the software. Both count. Our page on whether old systems count covers the switch.

micro1 says data should be primarily in English, and its FAQ says it is primarily looking for companies that operate in English and “maintain their documentation, workflows, and knowledge bases in English.” A manual written in Spanish for a Spanish-speaking crew is a question for micro1, not a reason to stop; our page on records not in English covers it.

How to prepare them

Less than you think. micro1 says a company does not need to anonymise its data before transferring it, because it has processes for de-identifying and transforming sensitive information.

So, as our own advice:

Don’t rewrite anything. A tidy new manual written for the application is worth less than the messy one the crews actually used. The crossed-out lines and handwritten notes in the margin are the corrections.

Don’t merge the versions. Keep each version as it was, with its date. If a file has no date, note the year you think it was in use.

Line up the procedure with the jobs. Note which procedure was in force for which years. A filled-in checklist means more next to the version of the rule in force that year.

List the sensitive fields, don’t scrub them. Write down where staff names, customer addresses and gate codes sit. Bring that list to the call with micro1’s Data Partnership Manager.

Fill in the data manifest honestly. micro1’s referral page says the company sets up its profile and completes a data manifest. Name the procedures as a separate source, with their years, not as a footnote to the job files.

micro1 says companies are given the opportunity to review representative samples before prepared data is used. That is the moment to check that the de-identification did what you expected. Our page on what to prepare before applying has the full list.

What this means for an HVAC, roofing or plumbing company

HVAC. The records are the start-up and commissioning checklists, the maintenance agreement checklist for each visit, the diagnostic flow for a no-cool call, the refrigerant handling procedure, the dispatcher’s call-sorting script and the in-home sales script. The filled-in maintenance checklists from every visit show what technicians found, season after season.

Roofing. The records are the tear-off and dry-in procedure, the fall protection plan and training program, the deck inspection rules, the storm response procedure, the inspection report template and the closeout checklist. The deck inspection notes show what a crew found under the shingles and what the office decided to do about it.

Plumbing. The records are the new-hire manual, the water heater install checklist, the gas test procedure, the drain camera inspection report form, the permit rules by job type and the call script for a leak. The camera reports show how a blockage was diagnosed, step by step.

In a company with 30 or more staff, look in more than one place: the shop, the shared drive and the field software. The page for companies with 30 or more staff explains why the line sits at 30. Our estimate turns your headcount and years into a range in five questions. Worth two minutes to see yours?

What is never included

micro1’s own lines first. It says “Personally identifiable information (PII) is removed when relevant.” Before any participation, it confirms four things with each company: U.S. and allied buyers only, data segregation, de-identification before sharing, and defined retention periods. It says personal and identifying information “is removed or transformed before your data is shared with third parties.” It says certain datasets “may undergo synthetic rewrites that preserve workflow structure while reducing direct ties to original records.”

Now our advice, which is ours and not micro1’s.

Customer names, addresses and payments. They sit on every filled-in checklist and every service ticket. They were never the thing being bought. The procedure is the same whoever the customer was.

Staff personal files. The signed training certifications carry names. The personnel file, the drug test results, the driver’s licence copies and the wage rates in the manual’s appendix are personal information. Raise them with micro1 before you apply. Our page on employee personal data goes further.

Gate codes, alarm codes and access notes. They end up in scripts and dispatch notes. They are not how the work was done.

Card numbers and bank details. A payment script that tells the dispatcher how to take a card over the phone is a procedure. The card numbers written in the call log are not.

Material you licensed from someone else. A manufacturer’s installation manual, a paid training course or a trade association’s safety program belongs to whoever wrote it. Your own procedure that refers to it is yours. Have counsel read the terms if you are not sure.

Anything a client owns. A commercial client’s site safety rules or a general contractor’s procedures you followed on their job may be theirs under contract. Only the contracts say which is which. Our page on client-owned work and NDAs covers it.

The safety page covers the protections in plain words.

What the company keeps

micro1’s answer to “Who owns the data?” is one sentence: “Companies retain ownership of their underlying data.” Your crews keep working from the same binder, and your next hire reads the same manual. What retention and deletion mean is on do you keep ownership of your records.

Where we fit

We, TrustPast, explain the process and give you a range with our estimate. Five questions, two minutes. The range is ours, not an offer. You apply to micro1 yourself, through the button below. micro1 pays us a referral fee. You pay us nothing, and we never see your files.

TrustPast

Questions and answers

Does micro1 actually ask for SOPs?

Yes. micro1’s data partnerships page names standard operating procedures (SOPs), process documentation, internal knowledge bases, workflows and templates among the data it is looking for. It lists SOPs again in its eligibility answer, next to project histories, CRM records and support tickets.

Our manual is ten years old and half of it is wrong. Does it still count?

micro1 publishes data quality as one factor in what it pays, along with size, workflow complexity, domain expertise and uniqueness. It does not publish a rule on old versions. Our own reading is that the old version next to the new one shows how the company learned; micro1 decides what it licenses.

Do we have to remove the technicians’ names from the sign-off sheets first?

No. micro1 says a company doesn’t need to anonymise its data before transferring it, because micro1 has processes for de-identifying and transforming sensitive information. Our advice is to list where those names sit and raise them on the call with micro1’s Data Partnership Manager.

Does micro1 want our customer list or price book?

Customer names and payments are never what is wanted. micro1 says “Personally identifiable information (PII) is removed when relevant,” and that personal and identifying information is removed or transformed before data is shared with third parties. What it describes wanting is how the work is done.

Do we keep our manuals?

Yes. micro1’s answer to “Who owns the data?” is “Companies retain ownership of their underlying data.” Your new hires keep training from the same binder tomorrow.