Inventory Module > Software Management Best Practices

I've been working in our ServiceDesk Plus and DesktopCentral system trying to get the software licensing to a point where we can use it for better management of the licenses in the environment. Spreadsheets and the like are still in use, because of speed and efficiency.

The one issue I'm having is that there is in the neighbourhood of 10 000+ titles that are showing up in the system. Most of that is "chaff'; drivers for software, other bits and pieces of software, things written in Chinese that are parts of some software, other executables that are part of some software, etc.

Are there some best practices to follow for getting to the meat of the software detected in the environment?

How are others trimming these lists to manageable and actual software titles in their environment?