For galleries that do both
Rent the wall. Sell the work. One statement.
Rae rents Studio 3. She also has two paintings on consignment, and she is owed a royalty on a third that an estate consigned. At the end of the month she should get one number — not two accounts and a subtraction.
One person, two directions
Art software knows what you owe a consignor. Property software knows what a tenant owes you. In a real gallery that is frequently the same person, and nobody puts the two on one page.
Owed to the gallery
- Studio, wall, plinth and storage rent
- Booking fees on a six-week hire
- Framing, crating and shipping billed on
- Late fees
Owed by the gallery
- Consignor proceeds on a sale
- Resale royalties — even when somebody else consigned the work
- Dealer shares and co-authored splits
- Reimbursed expenses
We owe Rae $1,840.
One sentence, after her rent, her two sales and her royalty have been netted against each other. That sentence is the product.
The rest is the job
An artwork record that holds up
One row per sellable object, so print 7/25 and 8/25 are two records with their own condition, provenance and buyer. Dimensions in millimetres, money in cents, and an edition number that cannot exceed its edition.
Three footings, never blurred
Consigned, owned or borrowed — worked out from the paperwork rather than typed into a dropdown. A borrowed work cannot be sold at any price, and the system says so.
Space that cannot double-book
Walls, rooms, plinths, vitrines, studios, storage. Long studio terms and six-week wall hires in one place, and two overlapping bookings on one wall are refused by the database rather than by a warning nobody read.
A storefront that sells one of a thing
An artwork sells exactly once, even when two collectors press Buy in the same second. The card is authorized first and charged only once the work is confirmed as theirs.
Splits with more than two sides
A resale royalty, a dealer’s share, a co-authored work, a chained consignment. Every payee is a line, and every line closes to the cent.
Evidence, not notes
Condition reports that freeze when they are signed, with photographs that never leave a private bucket. The record somebody points at months later.
Your own site, on your own domain
Every gallery gets a public site at yourgallery.gallerypms.com, or on a domain you already own. The artworks, artists and exhibitions on it are the same records you work from — publishing is a switch, not a second system to keep in step.