An Inventory ID is a unique piece of information to reference a specific artwork. All artworks must have unique Inventory IDs, similar to how product SKUs are used in other industries.
Art Galleria automatically generates unique, sequential Inventory IDs by combining different pieces of artwork information.
This article covers:
Inventory ID setup options
Default Inventory ID setup
For example, in our default inventory ID setup, the three components are prefix text, artist and sequential number.
You can modify the default Inventory ID setup yourself (see Configure your Inventory ID format below).
New Inventory ID setup options
(1) Artwork Year
Prefix based on the Artwork Year field + a unique sequence number.
For example, for an artwork created in 2022, the Inventory ID would be 2022-0001.
(2) Artwork Purchase Year
Prefix with the artwork purchase year (based on artwork purchase date field) + a unique sequence number.
For example, for an artwork purchased in July 2021, the Inventory ID would be 2021-0001.
(3) Custom field
Prefix based on a custom artwork field + a unique sequence number.
For example, if the custom field is a drop-down menu to select who is the owner of the artwork in a multi-owner collection, the Inventory ID could be SMITH-0001.
Please contact us if you want to implement one of these three options. Otherwise, you can customize the default settings on your own.
Configure the default Inventory ID format
Watch the video demonstration or scroll down for step-by-step instructions.
To edit your Inventory ID, open Settings and ensure you are on the Default Settings tab:
Edit any or all of the following fields:
Inventory ID prefix
This component is fixed, based on what you enter here. INV is the default prefix text on your inventory ID, e.g., INV-MEYS-0001. You can update this to any text you like, or leave it blank to turn it off.
Inventory ID artist
This component is dynamic, based on the artist's name. This is the middle component of the inventory ID based on the artist’s name. To set the format, use L for last name, and F for first name. For example, LLLF will include 3 letters from the artist’s last name, and one letter from the first name (e.g., Sara Meyer will be INV-MEYS-0001). Any other letters except "L" and "F" will be ignored. Leave this field blank if you do not want to include this component in your IDs.
Inventory ID suffix
This is a dynamic sequential number. It is based on the next available number in the series, and resets to zero for every artist. The zeropad option in settings allows you to specify how many zeroes to display at the end of your inventory ID (e.g., setting at 4 will start at INV-MEYS-0001).
Inventory ID separator
This component is fixed, based on what you enter here. The default is a "-", but you may prefer another character.
Scroll down to click Update Settings when complete. This new format will be applied to new artworks. To update an existing artwork, follow the instructions below.
Update the Inventory ID for existing artworks
1. In Inventory, open the more options (...) menu on an artwork and select Edit.
2. Click the re-load icon next to the Inventory ID field.
3. The ID will be updated according to the format you established in Settings.