Tracking Inventory: Manual or POS
You’ll hear me talk often about the importance of keeping your business paperwork in order, and inventory is where it all begins. Your gallery inventory is the foundation for everything: what you display, what you promote, what you restock, what you sell, and ultimately, how you make money. If you don’t know what you have, you can’t possibly know what you can sell or where your business is financially.
When I first opened my gallery, I tracked everything on paper. Artists would bring a written inventory list along with their work. We’d verify each item and transfer that list to each artist’s master inventory sheet, all kept in a large turquoise binder. Every piece was numbered and stickered by hand.
We recorded daily sales on a steno pad divided into columns (artist number, item number, description, price), and the next morning those sales were entered into a basic spreadsheet and manually deducted from each artist’s master list. Checks and double checks. My hope was that the redundancies would prevent errors.
When my gallery represented a small number of artists, the system worked well enough.
But as the gallery grew and sales increased, that paper-and-spreadsheet system became cumbersome and time-consuming. Mistakes were easy to make and even easier to miss. When our artist roster grew to over 100, inventory management started to take on a life of its own.
I knew just enough about spreadsheets to be dangerous, so I tried building a more efficient system myself. I quickly abandoned that and began researching Point of Sale (POS) systems that could support consignment inventory. There are many options out there, and choosing one felt overwhelming, but I took my time finding the best system for my business.
The transition wasn’t easy, but the shift was well worth it. We had to inventory the entire gallery by hand. When we finished, we discovered that we had over 11,000 individual items for sale in the gallery. That number still blows my mind.
But once we trained up and settled into using the POS system, I couldn’t imagine how we had ever managed without it.
The POS we used was cloud-based, which meant artists could view their inventory and sales in real time. That single feature built trust and motivated artists to restock proactively. It also eliminated the need for monthly sales report emails - a task my staff and I gladly let go of. We could get back to the work that actually mattered:
Receiving new work smoothly
Creating thoughtful displays
Talking with customers
And most importantly - selling art
Switching from paper to digital inventory was a turning point for the gallery.
That said, a paper system can absolutely work, especially for small galleries with a manageable number of artists. The key is to pay attention to when your system begins holding you back. “Just fine” is fine… until it no longer is.
As your gallery grows, your systems should grow with you. The right tools don’t just save time - they support better relationships, smoother processes, and a stronger business overall.