HATs: Hints and Tips For How An Artwork Inventory Can Be The Backbone To Your Art Business
Before I get into this topic, can I just say that I can already hear the collective sighs and understand that for some creatives, this topic might fall under the “I’d rather stick a palette knife in my eye” on your business set up ‘to do’ list - but for me, this ‘backbone’ continues to be a critical tool in helping me to put tangible figures around the creative side of my business. It leaves the guesswork out of the equation and ensures I’m clear about how, where and if my artwork is helping me to build a business. So, if it helps, I wanted to share some hints and tips from my own experience in this space.
What’s Important For You?
What you include in your own inventory is up to you, so have a think about what’s important for you to capture for your art business. Here are some of the columns I’ve included in my own inventory.
Artwork: for example, individual artworks and giclee art prints by name, number, or both; weight; size (height, width, depth as applicable), substrate and palette colours. This helps me keep track of my artworks and supports packing and postage costing estimates.
Costs (Materials): for example, you might want to include costs for substrate used; mediums used; backing/mounts if selling prints; hourly rate; framing and finishing costs and any postage or packing costs if you’re including these in your total price. I’d also suggest adding in a ‘total’ column to make life easier once you’ve decided on your pricing strategy. It’s important to keep a track of these costs to better understand how, and where your profit lies in your business. This understanding can also help with costing bespoke artwork requests as you have a record of costs for similar works you’ve already completed.
Price and Profit: depending now how you’re selling all, or part of your collection, the price you intend to sell your artwork for and associated profit (price minus costs). This is where the rubber hits the road so to speak, and can be very useful if you’re selling some of your artwork on your website and some pieces via another online platform as it helps you to keep track of any differences between costs and profit when all fees are included in your final totals.
Readiness: is all of your artwork ready for sale or are there some finishing touches to do before it’s ready? You could include a small note against each artwork to capture what needs to be done to get your artwork ‘sale or gallery ready’.
In Conclusion
DON’T make your inventory too complicated. You’re creating a useful tool to help you to keep track of your artwork collections, costs and prices etc - so be careful not to get lost down the inventory rabbit hole. Keep it functional and simple so it doesn’t become a chore to keep it updated.
DO focus on what’s important to you. This isn’t a one size fits all activity.
DO pick a format you’re familiar with so that it’s easy for you to update.
DO try and update your inventory on a regular basis so that it doesn’t become an administrative nightmare that can be very easy to put off. Perhaps pick a regular weekly slot when you’re doing other business related administrative activities. If you update as you go, or when you have a new collection of artworks to add, it makes the maintenance of the inventory so much easier.
DO use this tool to continually evaluate your art business and what’s working well, or not so well for you.
DO look for templates on-line if you’re stuck on the ‘how’. There are lots of basic inventory templates out there that you might be able to adapt.
I hope some of the above was useful! Good luck fellow emerging artists! x