Wednesday, October 08, 2008

"White Roses" --- SOLD



My husband is a software engineer by trade and lately he has been creating an online application for me to track the business side of my art: in the beginning, where paintings are, what's available, what's sold, how much I made last month, last year, and then later, what my expenses are, how much I owe for taxes, etc. He's even integrating it with Blogger and Ebay so that my daily painting posts are automatically pulled in from my blog and the auction status and latest bid amount for each painting is loaded from eBay, which means very little to no data entry!

This is a big improvement from the way I was tracking this stuff in an excel spreadsheet. It's getting to be so cool actually, that we thought perhaps other people would be interested in using it too. I thought I'd put out a kind of feeler to see who else would find this useful. We are thinking we would charge a montly subscription of $9.95. So if you're reading this and you're interested in being a beta tester, please write to me so I can get a count. Thanks! Below is a screen shot of the page with my daily paintings (click to see a bigger version).

15 comments:

Terry said...

Arttraks looks like a wonderful idea! I currently use Bento on a Mac for records and images- it does some things well, but not others, and has no way to link anything. I think you're onto something great!

Zehava Power said...

I wouldn't mind being a Beta tester.
I wonder if there will be a way to adjust the program to suit Canadian tax rates etc., and possibly some flexibility to custom design the sheet to suit the user's individual requirements (as you'd do in Excel)
I love the looks of the sheet, and the ability to have an image of the painting
I think this will be a very useful tool

thanks

Zehava Power
www.zehava.ca

Karen Hargett said...

Carol this is great! Mighty handy husband you have there ;-)I would be interested.

Karen Hargett said...

BTW - love the roses.

Sharon Lynn Williams Fine Art said...

Hi Carol: I have been going the spreadsheet way, but this looks cool. However, I don't sell through Ebay, only through my 4 galleries and local shows. I would be interested in paying a one time application fee (similar to other online programs) that would be tailored to my needs. I run my business through Quick Books which does all the tax stuff for me, so don't need that part also. A tracker program that keeps photos with the titles and dispatch information would be really useful.
Sharon

Anne Woods said...

Hi Carol, I'm definitely interested in this. I'm just getting started though, hoping to start selling on ebay within the week. I'm finally getting used to drawing/blogging every day. What your husband designed sounds like what I've been looking for, as the selling/accounting aspect of all this seems overwhelming right now.
The roses are gorgeous!

Pattie Wall said...

Hi Carol, I would be interested in using this (seems like) great software! I am so scattered and such a bad record keeper - it's always here, there and everywhere. I like the feature that it would be all in one place!
Love those loose brushstrokes, as always!

Johnnie Sielbeck said...

Hi — gorgeous bouquet
I'm interested in arttracks, too, although I'm not yet set up on eBay and Blogger. In the tab for 'your Customers': is this information also pulled from Blogger/eBay/sold to or is it data entry? Any software required on my end (filemaker, excel)? And (most important) will it run on a Mac?

Kim VanDerHoek said...

Fantastic idea! I would be interested in using it to track my Etsy.com sales as well as keeping an inventory on what paintings are where. I agree, you are onto something!

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful thing!! I sure could use a software like this! if you need someone else to test it, count me in!

Roxanne Steed said...

hmm, wow - will it go with a mac?? sounds like a GREAT idea that I've struggled with the last 2 years!!

Jo Castillo said...

Great roses!

The program looks great. Again, I'm a Mac user.

JudyMackeyart said...

The screenshot looks great. Will it eventually be a standalone program or will it continue as a subscription based on-line system?
I'd like to give it a try. I'm so bad at book-keeping and am trying different things - the program looks like it'd be fun to use!
Judy

Rosemary S. Antel said...

What a great idea. I would love to be a beta tester. I have some database experience and have done some testing and am pretty good at noting what I did and what happened that I did not expect, though my experience has been with oracle some time ago and environmental data.

I have a website, a blogsite and am selling on ebay from a PC platform.
http://www.RosemaryAntel.com
http://rosemaryanteldailypainting.blogspot.com/
http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/ravennest1_W0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_mdoZhttp://

Now I have a question for you. Did I make a mistake starting my bids so low?

Thanks, Rosemary

Connie Nobbe said...

I might like to purchase this program as a standalone program. I don't make art often enough yet to warrant using a subscription service. I love the look of it, and I need to get a record system going. You and your husband make a good team.