Record keeping for antique dealers

How antique dealing actually works

An antique dealer’s buying doesn’t follow a schedule. It follows estates, auction calendars and phone calls. One week it’s a two-day estate sale where the good stoneware went in the first hour. The next it’s a consignment auction with a buyer’s premium on top of every hammer price. Then a picker calls about a barn full of primitives, or a family wants someone to look through a grandmother’s china cabinet before the house goes on the market.

Each of these leaves a different kind of trail. There’s an invoice from the auction house. There’s a carbon slip from the estate sale company. There’s a check written at a kitchen table, cash for a picker, and a handshake price for the whole lot. Then come the costs between buying and selling. Fuel and a day of driving. A trailer rental. Restoration supplies, like finish restorer, paste wax, hide glue and replacement hardware. A repair you sent out. Storage for the pieces that don’t fit the booth or the shop.

And antiques sell slowly. A pie safe bought in spring may not sell until the following year. Long holding periods are part of the trade, which means the money you put out and the money that comes back are rarely in the same month.

Where the records fall apart

• Costs that arrive in pieces. The hammer price, then the premium, then a card fee, then a delivery charge. Each is easy to record once and forget the rest.
• Lots that hold many things. One price buys a box of smalls and a chair. Later, the paper says only “lot 214.”
• Private purchases. House calls and pickers often mean cash or a check, with no receipt unless you write one.
• Restoration and repair. Supplies and outside work belong to the business, but they rarely land in the same place as the purchase.
• Sales across venues. A shop, a mall booth, a show and an online listing, each reporting in its own way.
• Guesses that become facts. A rough number written down “for now” turns into the number, and nobody remembers it was a guess.

How Sellers Almanac helps

Sellers Almanac isn’t out yet, but here’s what it already does in the founders’ test build, shaped by the buying and selling at Howdy Honey Vintage and Folklore Antiques:

• Each cost where you incur it. A Purchase at the auction or the kitchen table, with a note like “lot 214, stoneware and a ladderback chair.” Restoration supplies go in as materials, storage or trailer rental as other.
• No signal needed. Farm sales and old houses rarely have reception. Offline records are marked “On this phone only” until they’re backed up.
• Totals you can trust. When a sale’s tax amount isn’t recorded yet, the totals say “at least” and tell you why, and the sale waits in Needs attention until you add it.

You can also correct or void a sale that falls through, with its history kept. Partners can each record into the same business from their own phone.

What’s coming

The heart of antique record keeping is the piece itself: what it cost, where it came from and what it sold for. Inventory items, each with its own cost, are in development, so there are no profit figures yet. Mileage, booth and mall features, reports on the web and export are planned.

See how it works, read the frequently asked questions, or follow the roadmap.