Vintro Pro
NL · FR · EN
Vintro Pro
NL · FR · EN
Often it is. This page is not trying to convince you that you need software — it is an honest attempt to say where the line sits, and how you notice you have crossed it.
Excel was a good start. This page says honestly when that is enough.
A spreadsheet is not a bad choice. It is simply not built for pieces that exist only once.
Almost every second-hand business starts in a spreadsheet. One tab, a few columns, and it holds for years. Anyone claiming you need software from day one is selling something.
But a point comes where the spreadsheet does not go wrong — it just stops keeping up. That point is not set by how many rows you have. It is set by what you need to be able to do with each piece.
If you recognise yourself here, there is little reason to change anything:
Does this work for you? Then it works. Do not change it because someone says you should.
It is rarely one big moment. It is these, and they usually arrive together:
What did you pay for it, and when? If that row was deleted when it sold, the answer is gone. In all four countries this knowledge base covers — the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and France — you have to be able to find a sold piece again. Only the retention period differs: it is drawn out in What belongs in your stock list?
With one-off pieces the photo sells, not the text. The moment they live somewhere other than the data, you are bringing two things together every single time.
A partner, an employee, weekend help. Two people in one file is the moment rows quietly go missing that nobody notices.
Then every piece needs an address of its own, a photo of its own and a price of its own. A row in a tab has none of that.
Tying purchase to sale piece by piece, period by period. Handwork that comes back every time and never gets shorter.
The trap is that you then look at stock software and find it fits no better. That is not you. Nearly every package starts from quantities of the same thing, and you have one of everything.
| A product code with a quantity | yours is always 1 |
| Minimum stock and reorder point | you cannot reorder |
| One purchase price per product | every price is different |
| One product photo for all units | every piece has its own photos |
| Sold = quantity down by one | sold = the piece is gone, but the data is still needed |
Which is why a spreadsheet lasts so long: at least it imposes nothing on you. The problem is not that a spreadsheet does too little, but that stock software usually does the wrong thing.
Run through these five. To how many do you say yes?
Yes to none or one? Stay with your spreadsheet. Three or more? You are already working against your own list.
And it is not a question of how many pieces you hold. Someone with forty who sells online hits this sooner than someone with three hundred who sells everything on the spot.
Not in licences. But in:
time lost hunting for photos and details
double entry, once in the list and again on the invoice
updates forgotten as soon as it gets busy
missed sales, because a piece is visible nowhere
Add that up once a week, and the question is no longer whether a spreadsheet is enough.
Not more columns. Something else: every piece as a thing of its own, with everything attached to it.
That is exactly what Vintro Pro is built around. Not a row in a list, but a record with photos, purchase date, purchase price, origin and location — and later the selling price and date.
For what the law requires in your list, What belongs in your stock list? sets it out for the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and France.
And what it looks like in practice is set out step by step in Adding a first item. If you would rather see the whole route one piece travels — from the auction to the invoice — it is set out in From purchase to sale.
The difference is not that you have to keep less. It is that you only type it once.
Vintro Pro gives every piece its own record with photos, prices and status — no rows shifting, no formula nobody dares touch.
Often it is. If your stock stays manageable and you know it by heart, you sell mostly on the spot and you are the only one keeping the list, there is little reason to change anything.
Not at a particular number of pieces, but at what you need to do per piece. It tips once the photos matter more than the description, a second person joins in, you start selling online, or the VAT return turns into digging.
Because you need the purchase price and date to establish your margin. Deleting the row as soon as something sells throws away exactly the evidence the margin scheme asks for.
Nearly every package starts from quantities of the same product: minimum stock, reorder point, one product photo for all units. With one-off pieces all of that is meaningless — you always have one, every price differs and every piece has its own photos.
The number is not the measure. Someone with forty pieces who sells online hits this sooner than someone with three hundred who sells everything on the spot.