Small business back end help
Long story short my hobby has become a viable business over the last couple years. Buying a selling vintage watches. It’s still a part time but with getting things squared away I can continue to grow. I need help with creating a system for bookkeeping, sales…
Long story short my hobby has become a viable business over the last couple years. Buying a selling vintage watches. It’s still a part time but with getting things squared away I can continue to grow. I need help with creating a system for bookkeeping, sales data,inventory etc. is this a CRM? the program I use is ok, but it’s designed for eBay and I sell on multiple platforms online and in person. and feel like I’m being held back by having to manually enter each transaction and have disjointed inventory/sales information. Unfortunately I’m not very tech savvy and have tried to use excel but never got the hang of how to build what I need from scratch. Ideally I’d like to find a program that can automatically pull any transaction from and to my bank account and send a prompt for me to categorize it (where I bought it, description, item number). And pull information from where it sold, eBay, chrono24, Venmo, PayPal etc. I really need help on what’s feasible and reputable people or products that can help. I’m very good at all the front end stuff like acquiring, selling, calculating profit margin on the fly etc. unfortunately I’m a mess with backend administration.
Collected discussion
Moderator Announcement Read More » Friendly Reminder r/smallbusiness is a question and answer subreddit. Ask a question about starting, owning, and growing a small business and the community answers. Posts that violate the rules listed in the sidebar will be removed. Please do not conduct market research on our community. We are not your focus group and asking us about our pain points, needs, what is hardest about X, etc. is not asking about how small business works or for real help with running your small business. These posts are subject to removal and given the community's disgust with the constant spamming of these posts you might just destroy your brand and contaminate your company search results. Seeing this message does not mean your post was automatically removed. If you asked about pain points or are directly or indirectly promoting a product please remove your post. Come back to post an honest question or give a knowledgeable response to someone else's question and leave your company name in your own profile. We can tell if you know what you're doing and the community can reach out if they need to. We welcome honest question posts, especially from newcomers. Thank you for your post. I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Create detailed SOPs for each step. Then get a $20 Claude subscription and give it those SOPs, which will take you a long way. Don’t try to one shot the whole thing but taking it piece by piece and slowly iterating take you a long way. Alternatively, take those SOPs and hire a VA from overseas for $5-$10/hr Edit - a word
I think bookkeeping systems like Xero, MYOB, and Quickbooks would really help you.
I work for agentui, feel free to try our platform you can build custom tools for your business to manage all of that and BTW I love vintage watches can you share your website?
It sounds like you've outgrown off-the-shelf tools. From what you've described a custom inventory + bookkeeping system (rather than just a CRM) would probably save you a lot of time by syncing sales across platforms, tracking inventory and helping categorize transactions automatically. I'd be happy to chat if you decide to go that route.
I built a tracking system in Claude for my small business. I got it to create me an excel sheet and all I have to do it enter money in and money out and it calculates everything I need it to.
You are probably looking at a mix of bookkeeping software, inventory management, and a simple CRM, not just one bucket. The main thing I would avoid is building a custom spreadsheet system from scratch if that is already where you get stuck. You will spend more time maintaining the system than using it. For a business like yours, I would look for a setup that does three things well: bookkeeping that pulls bank and card transactions automatically inventory with SKU level tracking across channels clean sales sync from eBay, PayPal, Venmo, and your other marketplaces A practical starting shortlist would be QuickBooks Online or Xero for bookkeeping, then something inventory-first like Zoho Inventory, Cin7, or Extensiv depending on budget and complexity. If you sell a lot across channels, I would also look at whether a connector like Zapier or native integrations can reduce double entry before buying anything. Honestly, I would map your workflow first: where an item is bought, where it is listed, where it is sold, and where profit gets recorded. If a tool cannot cover that path cleanly, skip it. Backend mess usually comes from broken handoffs between tools, not from one tool being terrible.
What you're describing sounds less like a traditional CRM and more like a lightweight inventory + sales + bookkeeping system that connects your different sales channels. Ideally, I'd want one place where every watch has a unique item ID, purchase cost, current inventory status, selling platform, sale price, fees, and actual profit. Then automate transaction imports from platforms/banks wherever integrations are available, while only asking you to manually review exceptions. We've looked at similar workflow problems at GLAD Studio, and I'd map the process first before choosing software. Otherwise, it's easy to end up paying for another tool that still leaves you copying data between systems. For your size, I'd definitely explore existing software/integrations before considering anything custom.
Reframe this slightly: with vintage watches you don't really have SKU-level inventory, you have unit-level inventory. Every watch is a unique item with its own cost basis, condition, and provenance, so "categorize the transaction" isn't enough by itself - you need each watch to be its own ledger line from purchase through sale, not just a category. That's different from a typical resale/retail setup where the same SKU repeats. The other piece nobody's mentioned: eBay, Chrono24, Venmo and PayPal all have different payout timing and fee structures, so your bank feed won't match your sale price 1:1 (fees get taken out before the deposit lands, sometimes days later). Whatever you build or buy, make sure it reconciles gross sale price minus platform fees against the actual bank deposit, not just "money came in." That mismatch is where a lot of DIY spreadsheet trackers quietly go wrong.
You can build a program like that with claude. Dm me if you need help.
Hi, I would like to understand a little more of your exact requirement. I have made a tool which can eliminate data entry, can manage inventory, and keep all your expenses in one dashboard. Where it can also track info like where it was sold, how much, when, you can go a step deeper to who it was sold too, with multiple audit records. I am not saying what I have is a complete fit for you. But reading your comment above it definitely solves quite a few of your initial requirements. Would you like to connect, and I can show you a quick demo? If it works great, if not no stress either.
I'm building a platform that'll piece together everything for you. DM if you'd like to try it, with developer support anytime you get stuck. All free and no catch. I'd just need your honest feedback.
That's awesome to hear your hobby has turned into a viable business/income stream. That's always exciting. You likely need a dedicated bookkeeping software (QuickBooks, ..) now so you can also file taxes appropriately I'm the Founder of https://usesphereapps.com/ (we're a modern QuickBooks replacement small business bookkeeping software - cheaper and better too). You could DIY the bookkeeping or we also provide managed bookkeeping services. You can book a meeting with me through the website. I'd be happy to help you get set up successfully for your business
This isn’t really a CRM problem. You need one master inventory ledger where each watch gets a unique item ID, then channel imports for eBay, Chrono24, PayPal, and Venmo plus a separate bank-reconciliation step; if the bank feed is the source of truth, fees, refunds, split payouts, and unsold inventory will get messy. Before buying anything, map one watch from purchase through repair/shipping costs, listing, sale, and payout, then make any vendor prove that exact workflow against 10 real past transactions. I work with a team on workflow automation and software systems; if you want hands-on help scoping the stack, happy to compare notes over DM.
Sent you a DM! I build stuff like that for businesses and built a tool for a barbershop that takes in their data and spits out data that helps them grow. Can definitely put something together to help with your case!