Auction desk
Jun. 17th, 2008 12:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidLast year, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zzbottom started having auctions. He needed people to help out, and I ended up working the desk. I've worked the desk for a bunch of his auctions at this point, the last one mostly solo during the auction.
The auction itself usually starts at 6, but the preview opens earlier. I get there as early as possible, hopfully by the time the preview starts. As people come in, I register them and give them a bidder number. If they've been to a previous auction, they're already in the system, and it's very quick, putting in whatever number they have this time. If they haven't been, it takes a bit longer, using their driver's license to put in name and address and such, asking for a phone number and their tax exempt certificate/number, if they have one. Every time, I have to get used to this particular computer program, which is old and in ALL CAPS. I'm used to tabbing between fields, and it uses a carriage return. There's a couple of other things like that (plus, I miss having a numeric keypad). Over time, though, it's gotten familiar.
Sometimes people aren't staying until the auction, and give a "left bid" instead. Or they want to be called, so they can bid that way. I haven't yet done the paperwork with either, but I have called a phone bidder. It felt a bit odd, to have such a focused, constrained conversation ("$100 to you." "Yes." *repeat with higher increments*), but that's better than some bidders who can't seem to focus on it, and complain that they would've bid more to get the item. Well, I can't know that unless you say something! I think handling phone bidders is a skill I haven't mastered yet.
Before the auction starts, I fill out a sheet listing everything in the cash box ($18.25 in quarters, etc.), counting everything twice, and adding it up on one of those calculators that print on a roll of paper. I label both, and initial them, then don't think about them again until after everyone has paid.
During the auction, I continue to register people who come late, cash out people who leave early, and run a subtotal of what's going on in the auction every 15 minutes or so. There's a scribe for the auction, typing in for each item a brief description, the lot/consigner number, how much it went for, and the bidder number of the person who bought it. That computer is on the same network as the ones at the desk, so it's possible to see after X minutes, Y items have been sold, and so forth. The subtotal reports are used afterward to analyze how the auction went.
Bidders can pay for their purchases using cash, check, or credit card. I'm still amazed at how many of the dealers use cash, huge wads of it - I've never seen that many Ben Franklins anywhere else. When someone gives me cash, the computer calculates the change, and I give them a copy of their receipt (the printer uses double-thickness paper with those holes on the edges; the lower copy is lighter, but legible). Checks are are also fairly quick: I check the check to make sure that the numbers and words match (and are the correct amount), writing the number of the check on the reciept and the bidder number on the check. They get the receipt, and away they go. Credit cards take a bit more work: I print out the receipt as before, but have to go to another, Web-enabled, laptop to submit the charge. There's a swipe thingie (I'm sure there's a word for it) which grabs the card info (or I enter it by hand), then I put in the total charge, how much of that is sales tax, and a transaction number, which is their bidder number. When the charge is accepted, the printer linked to that machine prints out two copies, side by side on regular paper. I use a paper cutter on this, asking the bidder to sign the merchant's copy, then giving them their copy of the charge receipt, the auction receipt, and, oh yes, their credit card. In all of these cases, the cash or cash equivalent ends up in the cash box, and the auction receipts are separate.
Once all the bidders there have paid, it's time to deal with the cash box again.
First, I set up the 'bank,' taking out everything that's over the original amount. Ideally, there's still a nice mix of denominations, so it's easy for the next auction without having to go to an actual bank. I write what's in the bank, doing another total with the calculator to confirm that it's the same amount. Then I start totalling the monies made that evening. There's places for all the denominations in cash (added twice, to be sure), then for all the checks (added twice, once by the numbers and once by the words), and for all the charge slips. This usually does not equal the revenues for the auction, because there are usually left bids. There's a space for all the bidders who aren't going to cash out that night. That all gets totalled, and if I'm very lucky, it matches the totals for the auction from the list of all sales and suchlike. If not, it's time to figure out where the discrepancy came from (which seems like it should be easily found, and yet, it always takes a bunch of time, at the end of the night, when I'm tired...).
Once all the numbers are squared away, different reports are filed in a variety of folders (including those every 15 minute things I printed out during the auction), and I go home wondering why I never manage to bring dinner with me.
One new wrinkle from the most recent auction: I learned that if one person buys more than $1000 in gold and/or silver coins, those purchases do not have sales tax. Unfortunately for me, the person who did buy this much bought other (taxable) things as well, and the auction receipts show sales tax as a lump sum, rather than by item. It took a long while to run the numbers (and I'm sorely tempted, if I knew that someone was going to be bidding on coins, to figure out some way to give them two bidder numbers, one for the currency, one for everything else), and meant that the computer-generated totals for the sale were off by that amount of sales tax.
zzbottom started having auctions. He needed people to help out, and I ended up working the desk. I've worked the desk for a bunch of his auctions at this point, the last one mostly solo during the auction. The auction itself usually starts at 6, but the preview opens earlier. I get there as early as possible, hopfully by the time the preview starts. As people come in, I register them and give them a bidder number. If they've been to a previous auction, they're already in the system, and it's very quick, putting in whatever number they have this time. If they haven't been, it takes a bit longer, using their driver's license to put in name and address and such, asking for a phone number and their tax exempt certificate/number, if they have one. Every time, I have to get used to this particular computer program, which is old and in ALL CAPS. I'm used to tabbing between fields, and it uses a carriage return. There's a couple of other things like that (plus, I miss having a numeric keypad). Over time, though, it's gotten familiar.
Sometimes people aren't staying until the auction, and give a "left bid" instead. Or they want to be called, so they can bid that way. I haven't yet done the paperwork with either, but I have called a phone bidder. It felt a bit odd, to have such a focused, constrained conversation ("$100 to you." "Yes." *repeat with higher increments*), but that's better than some bidders who can't seem to focus on it, and complain that they would've bid more to get the item. Well, I can't know that unless you say something! I think handling phone bidders is a skill I haven't mastered yet.
Before the auction starts, I fill out a sheet listing everything in the cash box ($18.25 in quarters, etc.), counting everything twice, and adding it up on one of those calculators that print on a roll of paper. I label both, and initial them, then don't think about them again until after everyone has paid.
During the auction, I continue to register people who come late, cash out people who leave early, and run a subtotal of what's going on in the auction every 15 minutes or so. There's a scribe for the auction, typing in for each item a brief description, the lot/consigner number, how much it went for, and the bidder number of the person who bought it. That computer is on the same network as the ones at the desk, so it's possible to see after X minutes, Y items have been sold, and so forth. The subtotal reports are used afterward to analyze how the auction went.
Bidders can pay for their purchases using cash, check, or credit card. I'm still amazed at how many of the dealers use cash, huge wads of it - I've never seen that many Ben Franklins anywhere else. When someone gives me cash, the computer calculates the change, and I give them a copy of their receipt (the printer uses double-thickness paper with those holes on the edges; the lower copy is lighter, but legible). Checks are are also fairly quick: I check the check to make sure that the numbers and words match (and are the correct amount), writing the number of the check on the reciept and the bidder number on the check. They get the receipt, and away they go. Credit cards take a bit more work: I print out the receipt as before, but have to go to another, Web-enabled, laptop to submit the charge. There's a swipe thingie (I'm sure there's a word for it) which grabs the card info (or I enter it by hand), then I put in the total charge, how much of that is sales tax, and a transaction number, which is their bidder number. When the charge is accepted, the printer linked to that machine prints out two copies, side by side on regular paper. I use a paper cutter on this, asking the bidder to sign the merchant's copy, then giving them their copy of the charge receipt, the auction receipt, and, oh yes, their credit card. In all of these cases, the cash or cash equivalent ends up in the cash box, and the auction receipts are separate.
Once all the bidders there have paid, it's time to deal with the cash box again.
First, I set up the 'bank,' taking out everything that's over the original amount. Ideally, there's still a nice mix of denominations, so it's easy for the next auction without having to go to an actual bank. I write what's in the bank, doing another total with the calculator to confirm that it's the same amount. Then I start totalling the monies made that evening. There's places for all the denominations in cash (added twice, to be sure), then for all the checks (added twice, once by the numbers and once by the words), and for all the charge slips. This usually does not equal the revenues for the auction, because there are usually left bids. There's a space for all the bidders who aren't going to cash out that night. That all gets totalled, and if I'm very lucky, it matches the totals for the auction from the list of all sales and suchlike. If not, it's time to figure out where the discrepancy came from (which seems like it should be easily found, and yet, it always takes a bunch of time, at the end of the night, when I'm tired...).
Once all the numbers are squared away, different reports are filed in a variety of folders (including those every 15 minute things I printed out during the auction), and I go home wondering why I never manage to bring dinner with me.
One new wrinkle from the most recent auction: I learned that if one person buys more than $1000 in gold and/or silver coins, those purchases do not have sales tax. Unfortunately for me, the person who did buy this much bought other (taxable) things as well, and the auction receipts show sales tax as a lump sum, rather than by item. It took a long while to run the numbers (and I'm sorely tempted, if I knew that someone was going to be bidding on coins, to figure out some way to give them two bidder numbers, one for the currency, one for everything else), and meant that the computer-generated totals for the sale were off by that amount of sales tax.