Show Prep

I'm getting some last-minute things ready for my craft show tomorrow. It is my first out-of-town craft show and I hope it goes well. I am hoping to raise enough money to buy the supplies I need to make merchandise for Summerfest.

I spent all of yesterday evening setting up my new system for tracking sales, which I have shamelessly copied off one of the ladies in my Craft Show Crafters Yahoo group. I got some removable stickers, printed the item numbers and prices on them, and stuck them on the hanging tags. When I sell the items, I will remove the stickers and place them on a paper. That way I will know what has sold and can enter it in quickly and accurately into Quickbooks.

I also have spent the last few days completely re-organizing my item list and price levels. It was quite an overhaul, but it really needed doing and should streamline things somewhat. I made all my items into sub-items so that they would be more visually organized on the item list and I can find them easier. Then I fixed my price levels so that my default level shows the price on the sticker. When I do craft shows, I usually include sales tax in the price on the sticker; but when I invoice it in Quickbooks to record the sale and the sales tax, I have to use different prices than the sticker prices because Quickbooks doesn't know how to handle prices which already include sales tax. Consequently there is a lot of rounding error and I frequently have to add in one-cent adjustments to these invoices. I found a way around it, though-- I made the standard prices to be the sticker prices, then I made a price level that is the correct percentage lower than the sticker prices so that when it is invoiced and taxed, the total comes out to the sticker price. I set up one for Logan sales tax and one for Ogden sales tax (the show this weekend is in Ogden). Now, if I want to add a location without changing my sticker prices, all I have to do is quickly set up a sales tax item for that location's tax amount, and a price level with the corresponding percentage decrease. Quickbooks will then automatically calculate my sales tax liability.

I still haven't balanced my accounts, though; but I'm afraid that will have to wait. I have to make sure everything is ready by this evening for Easter as well as the show. That means laundry, Easter eggs, candy, food for the big Easter dinner, etc. etc.