title: “Artwork SKUs”

Artwork SKUs

Every piece entered into the Artwork Catalog is automatically given a unique SKU — the ID that identifies the piece on its label, in the catalog, and at the point of sale.

This used to be called the Label ID. The name changed; the ID itself, its format and every value already assigned are unchanged.

Format

• Artist initials + a 5-digit number: Kelly Adams’ first piece is KA00001, her next KA00002, and so on. Numbers count up per artist prefix and are never reused, even if a piece is deleted.
• Two artists with the same initials: the first keeps the plain prefix (JS), the second gets JS_B, a third JS_C — each with their own independent numbering (JS00001 and JS_B00001 are different artists).
• Gallery-owned pieces with no artist use the GAL prefix (GAL00001).

Rules worth knowing

• An artist’s prefix is frozen the first time it is used. Renaming the artist never changes it — printed labels stay correct forever.
• The SKU is assigned by the system the moment the artwork is created. You never type one in and it cannot be edited. You’ll see it on the artwork form (as SKU) and in the catalog list, and artists see it on their own pieces in the member portal.
• Because a SKU is permanent and is never reused, the number stays with that piece for the rest of its life — including after it sells, or if it is withdrawn, damaged or lost.

Show SKUs

A piece in a Show (an open-call show, such as a winter show of small works) gets a show SKU instead, which tells you the show, the artist and the piece at a glance: WS26CFI1 is the show WS26, the artist CFI (Chrystale Files) and her piece 1.

Set it up: in the sidebar, open Exhibitions & Shows → + New exhibition (or open the show → Edit details) → tick Show → check the SKU prefix (filled in for you from the title and start year, e.g. WS26; 2 to 8 letters or digits, unique in your gallery) → Save.

Then add the pieces any way you like: Artwork Catalog → Artworks → tick the pieces → Add to show…; or on the show’s Artworks tab, + Add artwork, or Import ▾ → Add all by artist, Bulk add (CSV) or Import from EntryThingy. Each piece gets its show SKU the moment it joins the show.

• Format: the SKU prefix + a 3-letter artist code + the artist’s piece number, with no separators and no leading zeros: WS26CFI1, WS26CFL1, WS26MJO12.
• Artist code: first initial, last-name initial and the second letter of the last name (Carol Flaitz = CFL, Mary Jones = MJO). Middle names are left out; accents become plain letters.
• Two artists, one code: the artist already in the show keeps it. A newcomer with a different last name moves along their own last name (John Smith JSM, Jane Smythe JSY); a newcomer with the same last name gets A, B… (a second John Smith JSA). Codes never change once given.
• Numbers run 1, 2, 3… per artist in the show and are never reused there.
• The SKU prefix can’t change once the first show SKU is issued.
• A member’s own piece keeps its normal SKU on record and goes back to it when the show is closed (Exhibitions & Shows → open the show → Close show). Searching the Artworks tab finds it by either SKU.
• Find a whole show: type its prefix (e.g. WS26) in the search box on the Artworks tab.
• The change reaches Square on your normal push, so the register matches the label, and Print SKU labels prints the show SKU.

The full guide, including what to do when a piece is listed under Not numbered yet, is in Exhibitions & Shows, under How show SKUs are made.

Printing SKU labels

Labels are printed from the gallery’s catalog, not written out by hand.

1. Open the Artwork Catalog.
2. Tick the pieces you want labels for. (The Print SKU labels button is always visible; it tells you to select something if nothing is ticked.)
3. Click Print SKU labels.
4. The Where should printing start? dialog opens with a picture of your SKU label sheet (30 labels on the standard Avery 5160). Click the first empty label on your sheet, then the print button, which names that label (for example Print from label 5) — see below.
5. A PDF called sku-labels.pdf downloads. Open it and print it.

Choosing where printing starts

Label sheets hold many labels, and most print runs use only a few. So that you can reach for the part-used sheet in the drawer rather than burning a fresh one, the print step asks where on the sheet to begin.

Print SKU labels and Print wall labels open the Where should printing start? dialog. It draws the sheet you print on (chosen in Settings → Labels) the way it looks in your hand, with every label numbered. Under the title it says:

Label 1 is top left. Labels fill left to right, then down.

So on Avery 5160 (3 across, 10 down) label 1 is top left, 2 and 3 finish the top row, and label 4 starts the second row. On Avery 8876 (2 across, 5 down) label 7 is the first label of the fourth row.

Click the first empty label on your sheet. The labels before it turn grey and are crossed out (Used), the labels that will print are filled in (Will print), and the rest stay white (Left empty). For example, three wall labels on an 8876 sheet whose first six labels are gone, with label 7 clicked:

Below the sheet the dialog repeats your choice, for example “Printing starts at label 7 (labels 1 to 6 are used). 3 labels print on this sheet.” When there are more labels than fit on the rest of the sheet it also says how many go on the next sheet, for example “6 more labels continue on sheet 2.” The next sheet starts at its label 1.

• On a fresh sheet, leave it at label 1, which is where the dialog starts.
• Click the print button to print; it names the label you picked, for example Print from label 7. Cancel (or Escape, or the ✕) closes the dialog and prints nothing.
• With a keyboard: the arrow keys move from label to label, Home and End go to the first and last label, and Enter picks the label you are on. A screen reader reads each label as, for example, “Label 7, row 4, column 1”.
• Skipped labels print as blanks, so everything still lines up with the die cut.

The sheet

• Labels print on the sheet chosen in Settings → Labels (see Choosing your label sheets). Unless you choose another, SKU labels print on Avery 5160 — 30 labels per sheet, 3 across and 10 down, on US Letter. Any label stock sold as “Avery 5160 compatible” will line up.
• Print at 100% / actual size. If your print dialog is set to “fit to page” or “shrink oversized pages”, the labels will drift off their die cut.
• Up to 300 pieces in one go. Select more than that and print in batches.

What’s on a label

The SKU, the title, the artist’s name, and the price.

A piece with no price recorded prints no price line — not “$0”, which on the back of a painting would say something the gallery did not mean. Long titles and artist names are shortened at a word boundary, with an ellipsis, so they cannot spill over the edge of the label.

Choosing your label sheets

Each gallery chooses which Avery sheet each kind of label prints on. Owners and Admins open Settings → Labels and pick, from the list of supported sheets (each shows its label size and how many labels are on a sheet):

• SKU label sheet — used by Print SKU labels. Default: Avery 5160 (2 5/8 x 1 in, 30 per sheet).
• Wall label sheet — used by Print wall labels for a piece that is not in a Show. Default: Avery 8876 (3 1/2 x 2 in, 10 per sheet).
• Show wall label sheet — a second, usually smaller sheet for wall labels of pieces in a Show. Default: Avery 5162 (4 x 1 1/3 in, 14 per sheet).
• Print SKU on wall labels — a tick box, off unless you turn it on. When ticked, every wall label also shows the piece’s SKU (for example SKU: AT00001) in small type in its bottom right corner. See The SKU corner.

Click Save. The next print uses the new sheet: the layout, the number of labels per sheet and the sheet drawn when you choose where printing starts all follow it. The supported sheets are Avery 5160, 5162, 5163 and 8876.

Printing wall labels

A wall label says what hangs on the wall beside a piece. SKU labels go on the back of a piece; wall labels go beside it. Each wall label is centered, across and top to bottom, and shows up to five lines:

1. The artist’s name.
2. The title, in bold.
3. The wall-label subtitle, only when the piece has one (no empty line otherwise).
4. The size and medium detail on one line, for example 16x12 Oil on linen. If only one of them is recorded, that one prints; with neither, the line is left out.
5. The price, with two decimals and no currency sign, for example 790.00 or 1,250.00. A piece with no price, or set to Not for sale, prints no price line; a Sold piece still prints its price.

A long artist name, title or subtitle is set in smaller type until it fits the label, so nothing is cut off or runs into the next label.

The SKU corner

Unless you turn it on, there is no SKU on a wall label. To add it, open Settings → Labels, tick Print SKU on wall labels and click Save. Every wall label then shows SKU: and the piece’s SKU (for example SKU: AT00001) in small but readable type in its bottom right corner: on the wall label sheet, on the show wall label sheet, and on the wall label cards of an exhibition checklist. The five lines above stay as they are, centered in the space above it, and the SKU never sits on top of them, even on the smallest label. A piece with no SKU prints no SKU line. Untick it and click Save to go back to labels without the SKU.

1. Open the Artwork Catalog.
2. Tick the pieces you want wall labels for.
3. Click Print wall labels. (Like Print SKU labels, it is always visible and tells you to select something if nothing is ticked.)
4. The Where should printing start? dialog shows your wall label sheet (10 labels on Avery 8876). Click the first empty label, then the print button (see Choosing where printing starts).
5. A PDF called wall-labels.pdf downloads. Open it and print it at 100% / actual size.

From a show: Exhibitions → open the show → Print wall labels (or Print SKU labels) prints a label for every piece in it, after the same dialog (on the show wall label sheet for a Show). A show of more than 300 pieces downloads one PDF for each 300.

There are two sheets. A piece in an ordinary exhibition, or in none, prints on the wall label sheet (Avery 8876 business cards unless you chose another in Settings → Labels: each card 3 1/2 inches wide by 2 inches tall, 10 to a sheet). A piece that is in a Show prints on the show wall label sheet (Avery 5162 unless you chose another: 4 inches by 1 1/3 inches, 14 to a sheet), because a show carries many pieces and little wall. If your selection has both, one PDF holds both, wall label sheets first, each on its own sheets. Load each sheet’s stock before printing, and print each at 100%.

The exhibition checklist in Reports Manager (Exhibition checklists, layout Wall labels) prints these same labels, line for line, as cards on plain paper. See Reports Manager.

Who can print them

Label printing is a staff task, done from the Artwork Catalog. Artists can see their own SKUs in the member portal, but cannot print labels there. If your gallery asks artists to bring pieces already labeled, print theirs ahead of a drop-off day, or print on the spot when they arrive.

Marking pieces Not refundable

Some pieces the gallery does not take back, such as earrings or anything sold as final sale. The categories are the gallery’s own, set in Settings → Returns (see The register). To put many pieces in one at once:

1. Open the Artwork Catalog.
2. Tick the pieces. (The Not refundable button is always visible; it tells you to select something if nothing is ticked.)
3. Click Not refundable.
4. Choose one of the gallery’s categories, or Returnable to take the pieces out of any category.
5. Click Apply. A message says how many pieces changed. If every piece already carried the category, it says so plainly instead of “0 changed.”

Each piece in a category shows a Not refundable badge with the category’s name. To see them, filter the list: Any returns category shows every piece, Returnable shows the ones in no category, and each category shows only its own. The filter appears once the gallery has at least one category.

Worth knowing:

• Only the gallery’s own categories are offered. If the gallery has none yet, the window says so and links to Settings → Returns, where you add them.
• A sale already made keeps its category. The register records the category when the piece is sold, so a change here applies to future sales only.
• Some pieces are skipped, and the dialog names each one and why. A piece whose artist’s membership has ended, or a piece sold at the desk and taken home, cannot be edited, so it is skipped here too. Rather than only a toast that disappears, the dialog stays open on a list naming each skipped piece by title and SKU and saying why in plain words — a departed artist’s membership, or the returns category the piece kept from the sale it was already sold under. This is shown as a warning, not an error: a skip is an ordinary rule, not something that failed.
• Who can do it. Anyone who can edit artwork: an admin, or someone given the Artwork Catalog permission. Every change is recorded in the activity log.
• Up to 200 pieces go in each request. A larger selection is sent in batches and reported as one total.
• To change one piece, you can still open it and choose the category under Returns.

Dimensions

A piece’s size is three boxes on its form (Artwork Catalog → open the piece, or + New artwork), in inches: Height, Width and, for a 3-D piece, Depth. Dimensions are optional; leave all three blank for a piece with no size. Each box takes a whole number, a decimal or a fraction: 24, 7.5, 1 1/4, 1-1/4 or 7/8. Height and Width go together, and a Depth needs both. Zero, a negative number or a word is refused with a message.

Under the boxes the form shows Shows as …: the size exactly as it prints everywhere else. There is one standard:

• 24 × 30 in — Height × Width
• 9 × 7 × 7 in — Height × Width × Depth
• 1 1/4 × 1/2 in — fractions of an inch to the sixteenth are shown as fractions; any other decimal keeps up to two places (7.33 × 2 1/8 in)

That same text is what the catalog export, the wall labels, artwork sheets, the exhibition checklist and catalog, Inventory by Artist, the purchase letter, the website and the Square item description all show.

A piece saved before the boxes existed shows its old text under them as Was typed as …. If the old text reads cleanly the boxes start filled and saving stores the size; if not, the boxes start empty and the old text prints as typed until you enter the size. Opening and saving the piece without typing a size never removes the old text.

Fix dimensions

Artwork Catalog → Fix dimensions (Owners and Admins only) converts the old typed sizes in one go, after you have checked them. It reads every piece that has no Height and Width yet and lists three groups:

• To fix — each piece with its size Before (as typed, for example 24x30 or 1-1/4x1/2) and After (24 × 30 in, 1 1/4 × 1/2 in). All are ticked; untick any you do not want.
• Needs a person — sizes it will not guess at, with the reason: a typo such as 10-1.2x7/8, centimeters or feet, words, one number or more than three. These cannot be ticked and are never changed; open the piece and enter its Height and Width.
• No dimensions — pieces with no size at all, so you can see which ones should have one.

Nothing changes until you press Apply (it says how many it will fix). Apply writes the converted size for the ticked pieces only. A piece someone edited after you opened the list is skipped and keeps that edit (open Fix dimensions again to see it with its new text). The result says how many were fixed and why any were skipped. Each apply is one entry in Settings → Recent Activity (fixed artwork dimensions), and the log keeps every piece’s old and new size. Fixed pieces are sent to Square again, because their description carries the size; if a very large apply runs out of time the result says how many are still to send, and Settings → Square Integration → Push catalog to Square sends them.

Editions

Edition number and Edition size (for example 3 of 50) are for prints and other work made in editions. A gallery that does not sell editions can switch them off: Settings → Taxonomy → Editions (Owners and Admins only), untick Use Editions, and press Save. Editions are on for every gallery until someone switches them off.

While Editions is off:

• the artwork form (Artwork Catalog → open the piece, or + New artwork) and the member portal’s artwork form do not show Edition number or Edition size;
• artwork sheets print no Edition line or column, and your website shows no edition for any piece;
• a save that tries to set an edition (from an older screen, or through the API) is refused with Editions are switched off for this gallery (Settings > Taxonomy > Editions), so Edition number and Edition size cannot be set.

Nothing already recorded is removed. Tick Use Editions and Save again and every piece’s edition shows exactly as it was. The switch is your gallery’s alone: no other gallery is affected.

Fix medium details

Artwork Catalog → Fix medium details (Owners and Admins only) converts each piece’s typed Medium detail into your gallery’s own lists (Settings → Taxonomy) as Medium | Medium detail | Support, after you have checked it. It reads every piece not yet converted and lists two groups:

• To fix — each piece with its text Before (for example oil on canvas) and After (Painting | Oil | Canvas). A word that is a Support (canvas, linen, panel, bristol board) becomes the Support, never the detail. Text mentioning sleeve or sleeved also sets the Format to Sleeved Art. All are ticked; untick any you do not want, then press Apply.
• Needs a person — pieces it will not guess at, with the reason: no medium, the medium other, a word that is not in your lists, more than one detail (oil, mixed media), or a Medium name alone (jewelry). Press Edit on a row to choose its Medium, Medium detail, Support, Format and Medium notes right there, then Save. The row leaves the list and the cursor moves to the next one; a choice your lists do not allow is refused with the reason under the row.

Nothing changes until you press Apply or Save. A piece someone edited after you opened the list is skipped and keeps that edit. Each fixed piece is one entry in Settings → Recent Activity (fixed a piece’s medium details), the log keeps its old and new medium, and its Category is set again from your Category rules. Pieces linked to Square are re-sent to Square in the background, a few at a time; there is nothing to wait for. With hundreds of pieces, run it after the gallery closes, so the register is not busy while Square catches up. A piece the background push did not reach goes with the next Push catalog to Square.

When a piece fails to sync to Square

Open Settings → Square Integration. If any push failed, the card lists each piece by title (with its SKU and artist), the error Square returned, and when it was last tried. The title links straight to that work in the catalog, and Retry re-sends just that piece. A retry always really pushes — it does not skip because “nothing changed” — since the cause is usually on Square’s side (an expired connection, a location, a rate limit) rather than in the artwork itself.