Keeping track of antique booth sales, rent and commission

How booth money actually moves

A booth is a different kind of selling. You don’t ring up the customer; the mall does. You often aren’t there when something sells. And the money reaches you later, after the mall has taken its share.

The usual shape, though every mall differs:

• The mall’s checkout rings the sale. It records the price on your tag and, at many malls, collects sales tax.
• The mall keeps a commission, a percentage of your sales, and sometimes card processing fees on top.
• Rent is charged for the space, monthly, either billed separately or taken out of your payout.
• You get a statement and a payout (a check or a deposit) once or twice a month, listing your sales, the tax, the commission and any deductions.

The payout is the number everyone remembers. It’s also the least useful number for records, because it’s sales minus commission minus rent, with the tax handled somewhere in between.

Where Sellers Almanac stands

Booth and mall features are planned for a later phase: rent, commission and mall sales tracked as part of the business. They’re not built, and no date is promised.

Today you can still keep good booth records with the three record types that exist: Sales, Expenses and Purchases, each with a note. It takes a few minutes per statement.

A booth statement routine, step by step

1. When the statement arrives, don’t start from the payout. Start from the sales.
2. Record the booth’s sales as a Sale. Use what customers paid and the sales tax shown on the statement, recorded as it appears. Sellers Almanac never calculates tax. Note the booth and the period: “Booth 14, first half of the month.”
3. If the statement doesn’t show the tax yet, record the sale and leave its tax amount blank. The sale waits in Needs attention, and Sales and Sales tax collected say “at least” until you add it.
4. Record rent as an Expense when it’s charged, classified as other and noted with the booth and the month. Rent is a cost of having the space, so it belongs with the business’s running costs.
5. Record the commission as an Expense, for now. Commission and card fees are really costs of the sales themselves. Sellers Almanac doesn’t count fees on a sale in any total yet, so until it does, record each as an Expense classified as other, with a note: “Booth 14 commission, first half.” Card fees the mall deducts go in the same way.
6. Record booth supplies as Expenses too. Price tags, display risers, shelf paper, the lamp you bought to light the corner.
7. Check against the payout. What customers paid, less the commission and fees the statement deducted, less rent if the mall takes it from the payout, and less the tax if the mall sends it on for you, should come close to the deposit. If it doesn’t, compare line by line with the statement.

Recording sales at the full amount, rent as a running cost and the commission as a cost of selling keeps all three visible. Recording only the payout hides what the booth sold and what it cost you to sell it.

What customers paid and the payout: counting each fee once

A mall statement usually shows two different numbers, and both are right: what customers paid and what the mall paid you (the payout, after its deductions). The records should hold what customers paid as the sale and each deduction as its own cost. Nothing goes in twice.

• Record the sale at what customers paid, not at the payout. Recording the net payout as the sale and the commission as an expense would subtract the commission twice.
• Don’t record the payout as a second sale. The deposit is the same money as the sales on the statement, less deductions; recording both would count those sales twice.
• Rent is not a fee on a sale. Booth rent is a cost of having the space, recorded as an Expense whenever it’s charged, even when the mall takes it from the payout.
• Record each fee in one place only. Commission and card processing fees are costs of the sales. For now, until Sellers Almanac counts fees on a sale, record them as Expenses classified as other, with a note naming the mall, the booth and the period, so they count in Spent. A sale in Sellers Almanac also has optional fields for a platform or marketplace fee and a payment processing fee. Those are kept with the sale and shown on it, but they aren’t counted in any total yet. Leave them empty for booth sales, so the same fee isn’t recorded twice.
• What customers paid, fees and the payout, in one line. What customers paid − any sales tax the mall keeps to send in itself − commission − card fees − any rent the mall takes from the payout = the payout. Sellers Almanac shows What customers paid, Sales (that amount less the sales tax you record) and the fees in Spent; it doesn’t work out the payout, so check that by hand against the statement.
• Don’t fill in what the statement doesn’t say. If a fee or the tax isn’t shown yet, leave it out and make a note rather than estimating. A sale’s missing tax amount waits in Needs attention; a fee you don’t know yet can be recorded when the statement shows it.

Sales tax at the mall

In many malls, the mall collects sales tax at checkout. Who is responsible for sending it on depends on the mall’s arrangement and your state’s rules. Ask the mall, and ask your tax preparer. In Sellers Almanac the tax you record is kept apart from sales either way, so it never inflates what the booth brought in.

Is the booth earning its space?

The statement routine gives you what you need for the question every booth dealer asks: is this space worth the rent? Over a few months, put the booth’s sales beside its rent, commission and supplies. Sellers Almanac’s totals show what you’ve recorded for Today and This week; for a longer view, a simple monthly tally from your statements does the job until booth features and reports arrive.

Related reading

For the sourcing that stocks the booth, see sourcing expense tracking. For running costs generally, see reseller bookkeeping. For booth dealers specifically, see who it’s for.

Sellers Almanac is in founder testing on iPhone and isn’t available to download yet.