The shape of a month

Not a feature list — the order things actually happen in, and where every other system makes you get up and go somewhere else.

  1. 1

    Work comes in, on a footing you can name

    A consignment from an estate at 40%. A piece bought outright. Something borrowed for a show. GalleryPMS works out which of the three each work is on from the paperwork itself, and refuses the impossible combinations — a work cannot be consigned and owned at once, and a borrowed piece is not for sale at any price.

  2. 2

    Space goes out

    Studio 3 on a rolling term with a notice period. The north wall booked for six weeks in October. Both are the same kind of record, and the database refuses two overlapping bookings on one wall — including for dates a year out, which a “current tenant” field cannot express.

  3. 3

    Rent bills itself

    On the first of the month, every active term is charged once. Run it twice and nothing happens the second time, because the guarantee is a constraint rather than a careful script. A due day of the 31st lands on the 28th in February.

  4. 4

    A show goes up

    Install dates, opening, closing, deinstall — four dates, and the week of hanging is the one nobody plans for, so it becomes a reminder on its own. Framing and crating become tasks with costs. Condition reports freeze the moment they are signed.

  5. 5

    Something sells

    Across the counter or from your own storefront. The split appears already worked out from the consignment’s terms — and where there is a third claimant, a resale royalty or a dealer’s share, that is a line too. Every line closes to the cent before the sale can be confirmed. An artwork sells exactly once, whoever clicks first.

  6. 6

    And at the end of it, one number

    Rae’s rent, her two sales and her royalty on somebody else’s work arrive on one statement with one closing balance. Finalize it and the figures freeze: a correction made in December lands in December, and the document she was sent in October stays as it was sent.

What your artists see

A portal of their own, with their work, their consignments, the space they rent, and the same one sentence you see — from their side. They can propose a new work for your consideration and report a problem with a piece. They cannot change a price, write off a charge, or see another artist’s anything.