The workbook your technicians fill in is not the workbook you want a customer to open. It carries internal columns, whoever's name Excel attached to it, and none of your branding. The Inventory Rebranding Tool takes that file and produces a customer-ready version of it — styled, trimmed, and stripped of its origin — without touching the original.
Before you start
Inventory Rebranding opens inside the ITAD Tools dashboard and needs a free account; it is part of the starter toolset, and unlike the bulk lookup tools it draws on no upload allowance. Have three things to hand: the inventory workbook itself, your logo as an image file, and the two brand colours you want on headers and accents. If you intend to use the email route later, decide now which columns a finished document should have, because that decision becomes a template file you upload once.
Rebranding a workbook step by step
- Open Inventory Rebranding and set the sidebar first: font family, size, and weight under Font Controls, then company name, tagline, logo and your primary and secondary colours under Company Branding.
- Tick Clear all metadata if the file should not identify who produced it. This blanks the naming fields in the document properties, not your data.
- Click Save as Defaults so the same branding is waiting next time. These defaults live in your browser.
- Drag the inventory workbook into the upload zone, or use Browse Files. A preview of the first rows appears so you can confirm the right file landed.
- Hide the columns a customer should not see, rename the headers that are internal shorthand, and if your quantities are written in the bracketed style, turn on quantity reformatting and pick the columns it applies to.
- Export, then download the finished workbook. Your original file is unchanged on disk.
What each control changes
- Company name and tagline — written into the header of the exported document, which is what makes it read as yours rather than as a raw export.
- Logo — an image file embedded into the workbook itself, so it travels with the file rather than depending on a link.
- Primary and secondary colour — applied to headers and accents. Two colours, not a full theme.
- Font family, size, bold and italic — applied to the data cells, which is what turns a mixed-formatting workbook into a consistent one.
- Hide and rename columns — hiding drops a column from the export entirely; renaming changes only the header, leaving the values untouched.
- Reformat quantities — rewrites the bracketed count notation into a readable multiplier form, on the columns you select and no others.
- Clear all metadata — blanks the naming fields in the document properties Excel keeps invisibly: the author and last-modified-by names, plus the title, subject, description, keywords and category fields. Creation and modification dates, and any custom document properties your template carries, are not cleared — check those by hand if they matter.
- Save as Defaults versus Save to Server — these are different things. Defaults are remembered by your browser for your own next session. Save to Server stores the settings against your account, and is what the email route reads.
- Excel template — an empty workbook whose headers define the column structure applied to files sent in by email. It has no effect on a file you upload by hand.
Making the call
Decide what a customer is entitled to see before you decide how it should look. Hiding a column removes it from the exported document, so internal cost, grader initials, bin locations and reference numbers are the ones to take out — while anything the customer needs in order to verify what they received, such as identifiers and quantities, has to stay. Renaming is the gentler option and is usually the right one for a column that is merely written in internal shorthand.
Clear the metadata whenever the file leaves your organisation. It costs nothing, and the author name Excel attaches quietly is exactly the detail that makes a rebranded document stop looking rebranded. It is not a full scrub, though: the timestamps and any custom properties stay behind, so a file that must give nothing away needs a manual check as well.
Choose the email route only for a recurring job with a settled column structure. It is genuinely hands-off once configured, but it applies one saved configuration to whatever arrives, which suits a weekly report and does not suit a one-off file that needs its own judgement.
When something looks wrong
- There is no part number lookup. Automatic FRU, marketing and spare number lookup was withdrawn in August 2026 and the panel has been removed, so nothing on the page fetches those numbers for you. Put them into your workbook before uploading, or fill them from the manufacturer parts catalog.
- My branding was not remembered. Save as Defaults stores the settings in your browser, so a different machine, a different browser or cleared site data all start empty. Save to Server is the durable copy, and is a separate button.
- I emailed a workbook and nothing came back. Two conditions must both hold. The address you sent from has to match the address on your ITAD Tools account, and you must have clicked Save to Server at least once so there are settings to apply. If either is missing the message goes to support instead of being processed, and you get no reply.
- The upload was rejected. Accepted formats and the maximum file size are printed under the drop zone. A file exported from another system sometimes carries a spreadsheet extension while being CSV or HTML underneath; re-save it as a genuine Excel workbook.
- The export has columns the template does not. The Excel template governs the email route only. A file you upload by hand is shaped by what you hide and rename in the session, not by the stored template.
Frequently asked questions
Does it change my original file?
No. The upload is processed into a new workbook that you download; the file you dragged in is untouched. Nothing you set in the sidebar is written back to it either.
What does clearing metadata actually remove?
The naming fields in the document properties Excel stores invisibly alongside your data: the author and last-modified-by names, plus the title, subject, description, keywords and category fields. Creation and modification dates and any custom document properties are not cleared. It removes the names that would otherwise say who produced the source file, not every trace of where the file came from.
Can the tool look up part numbers for me?
No. Automatic FRU, marketing and spare number lookup was withdrawn in August 2026 and the panel has been removed, so nothing on the page fetches those numbers. Enter them into your workbook by hand, or from the manufacturer's own parts catalogue, before uploading.
How does the email automation work?
Set your branding, click Save to Server, optionally upload an empty Excel template to define the column structure you want, then email a workbook to the rebranding inbox printed in the template panel. A worker matches the sending address to your account, applies your saved settings, and replies with the processed file attached.
I emailed a file and nothing came back.
Two things must both be true before a reply is sent: the address you sent from has to be the address on your ITAD Tools account, and you must have clicked Save to Server at least once so there are settings to apply. If either is missing the message is routed to support rather than processed, so no reply reaches you.
Try it
Rebrand one real inventory file end to end, then open the exported copy's document properties: the author and last-modified-by fields should be empty, while the creation and modification dates will still be sitting there.