Appraisals

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

1. Go to Appraisals → + New.
2. Pick the customer (live search; create inline if needed).
3. 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. Take Photo uses the camera on a phone or iPad; + Upload picks a file. Either way the crop window opens first, the same one inventory photos get — frame the piece, pick a ratio, then Upload. Use as is puts the picture in untouched, and Cancel adds nothing.
• Appraised Value — the dollar value you’re certifying.
• Appraisal item details — metal type, weight, stone specs, marks, condition. These print on the appraisal.

If the piece has a stone linked to it, JewelTrak asks whether to appraise that too. Save a setting whose center stone is a separate stock record and a prompt lists the stone with its own value — the same prompt you get when you put that piece on an invoice or a memo. Add it and it goes on as its own line, priced from the stone’s Sell Price; a stone with no price on it lands with the value blank so you can fill it in. Answer No to appraise the piece alone, or say the two don’t go together and the link itself is broken, so the question stops being asked. Appraising a ring without its center stone is how an insurance claim gets short-paid.

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:

1. Open the appraisal detail page.
2. Click Print for a paper copy or Email to send the customer a PDF.
3. 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.

Preset appraisals on an item

If your shop uses preset appraisals, an item’s Appraisal tab holds a ready-made appraisal for that piece. It’s the copy your website and eBay listings show, with the customer lines left blank. Editing a field and clicking Save stores the details and rebuilds that copy.

When nothing has been edited, Regenerate rebuilds the stored copy from the details already saved. Use it after the item’s photos, stones or metal change, or after your own signature or title changes, so the copy reflects them. It’s dated today.

The appraiser who signed it stays on it. Once an appraisal carries an appraiser’s signature, Save, Regenerate and the customer copy you print or email keep that appraiser’s name and signature, whoever clicks. An appraisal that hasn’t been signed yet is signed by the first person with a signature on file who saves it, so make sure the appraiser has uploaded one under Settings → My Account → Preferences → Workstation → Appraiser.

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?”