An appraisal is a document that records the appraised value of one or more items for a customer — typically used for insurance, estate planning, or resale. Appraisals do not move inventory; they’re informational. The same item can be appraised multiple times over the years and each appraisal stays on file.
Creating an appraisal
- Go to Appraisals → + New.
- Pick the customer (live search; create inline if needed).
- Save the header so you can start adding items.
Adding appraisal items
The Stock # field offers two lists. It opens on Bought here — what this customer has bought from you, newest first, with photos, so you can recognize the piece rather than having to know its stock number. Switch to All stock to search your whole inventory, for a piece they didn’t buy here or bought on someone else’s account. Pick Misc as the Stock Type for an item that isn’t in your system at all, which is most appraisals.
Picking a piece from either list fills in its description and seeds the Appraised Value with the item’s current price — Retail Price for jewelry and watches, Sell Price for stones. That’s a starting number, not the appraisal: type over it. It is never seeded with what the customer paid, and if the item carries no price the field is simply left empty.
Neither field is overwritten once you’ve typed in it — correcting the stock number won’t replace your wording.
Each appraisal line is the customer’s item plus its appraised value:
- Description — what the item is.
- Photos — up to two per line. Both print on the appraisal, side by side, so a second angle is worth taking.
- Appraised Value — the dollar value you’re certifying.
- Appraisal item details — metal type, weight, stone specs, marks, condition. These print on the appraisal.
Most appraisal lines describe the customer’s own property rather than your stock, which is what Misc is for — the appraisal doesn’t move inventory either way. But when the piece is one of yours, usually because you sold it to them and they now want it insured, link it with the Stock # field above and the description and value come across with it.
Finalizing and sharing
Once all items are entered:
- Open the appraisal detail page.
- Click Print for a paper copy or Email to send the customer a PDF.
- The printed/emailed appraisal includes your store’s letterhead, customer info, the items with their photos, the total appraised value, and the appraiser’s certification and signature.
What the document prints
- The letterhead uses your Full Logo. The appraisal is the one document that prints the large mark — it’s the one that gets filed and handed to an insurer. Upload it under Settings → Organization → Full Logo (appraisals). Because that mark is usually your name set in your own type, the appraisal prints the address beside it and doesn’t repeat the store name as text. If you haven’t uploaded a full logo, it falls back to the small transaction logo and the name prints alongside it.
- The appraiser is named once, on the line they sign. If they have uploaded a signature under Settings → My Account → Preferences → Workstation → Appraiser, it prints above that line. The appraiser on the document is matched to the employee by name, so it has to match their first and last name for their title and signature to be picked up.
- The appraiser title — set per person under Settings → My Account → Preferences → Workstation → Appraiser → Title, with an organization-level fallback — can be either a bare credential (“GIA Graduate Gemologist”), which prints under the name, or the whole printed signature line (“Michael Feder, Appraiser”), which prints on its own. Both are normal; the document works out which you meant.
- Item photos only take a column when at least one item on the appraisal has one; otherwise the descriptions get that space.
The appraisal is permanent once finalized — edits become a new appraisal. Old appraisals stay on the customer’s contact history page so you can see how values have changed over time.
Tips
- For high-value items, take the second photo — a setting shot beside the stone shot makes the document far more useful to an insurer, and both print.
- Customers can request the same item be re-appraised periodically (insurance carriers often want updated values every few years). Each appraisal is its own document; nothing is overwritten.
- The Appraisals list filters by customer and date range — useful when a customer asks “what was that earring set appraised at last time?”