Organisation and Inventory

I was reading this article from MTGPrice.com and found it to be very true and helpful. I have a small collection which I am still cracking my head on how to log my inventory in the most organised and efficient manner. I also want to create an in-out transaction for me to keep track of things. (More on this later)

To me, this is really a simple thing, but essential. I already have some sort of the skeleton out now, but I have to fill in the blanks. The main question is, how?

I have paragraph extracts from the article which summarises the tips for inventory management and logging I found useful. The main points are highlighted in Bold font.

1. "The first phase involves combing your collection for rares and other money uncommons and commons. If you generally know the era of Magic where your cards come from you can print out a buylist from those sets and look through it before going through your cards. Once you pull out the cards with value, you can organize them into a few different binders. Yes, this means you might be taking apart your current trade binder. Do not fret: this will get you more value in the end."
2. "I like to have three binders: One for the hottest standard cards. Shocklands, scrylands, and Standard playable cards galore. I generally try to trade into newer sets with this binder. One for Modern/Legacy cards. Any kind of dual land, Modern and Legacy commons, uncommons, and rares all go here. Commons like Serum Visions trade surprisingly well and are not that difficult to obtain in trade. One for Casual/Commander cards. This one is typically the bulkiest. There will be tons of foils, Commander staples, etc. that move out of this binder. Keeping this one stocked will net you massive gains from seemingly silly foils and trade you into cards that hold more weight. I might even say this pool of cards will trade the most."
3. "you should go back to the bulk commons, uncommons, and rares. You should now take out any rares and mythic rares. You can save these in a separate box for bulk at a later date or keep in a dusty old binder in case they spike. This is a good way to utilize MTGPrice’s collection tool. You can input all of the cards that you have in a junk binder and be able to see if any spiked recently. Needless to say, you could make a whole bunch of money. Going forward, if any of them spike, you will be able to see that too."
4. "Generally the advice is: do what the card shops do. You should know what quantity you are speculating in and how much you bought in for. You should also know how much you spent on shipping. I like to keep this in a spreadsheet."

With the basics done, I have to log into the inventory, Here are the useful information that I have fished out that helps on how to use them;

1. "you should be evaluating how much the buylist / eBay price is going to have to rise before you make any money at all. You should do a gauge on shipping costs and factor that in to a spreadsheet."
2. "In your spreadsheet or somewhere else you should also write a serious evaluation of why you bought in to this card and what trajectory you expect to see.... By gathering as much data as possible we can make better decisions in the future."
3. "When I am at an event, I can pull up the spreadsheet of the cards I am speculating on and seeing if I can pick up any more copies at similar prices minus shipping. I really like the spreadsheets for when I am watching coverage of major events as well. I can quickly plug in the expected prices of a card and find out how much it would have to go up in order to make any money at all."

The points are just paragraphs that I took from the article (credits due to the original author) and if you really want the full detailed article on what he has written and discussed about, go to the link I have provided above. So, as to what I have done on my part, I have the following for logistics management:

• 2 Bank Accounts
• A couple of Excel sheets
• Google Drive 
• 10+ Boxes of commons and uncommons, semi-sorted.
• 2 9x9 Binders, 1 4x4 Binders
• 3-4 Storage boxes, 1 used for bulk rares
• 2 Medium-Sized drawers for storage

Essentially, now I must create a work flow for logistics processing. I'm not the kind of person who will  or like to diligently update stuff in a complicated system with much backlog. I prefer a fast and efficient manner to log my inventory and manage my logistics. While I do not currently have a full work flow, I am working on an ideal case and tuning it from there. While I am on it, why not also account for logging my daily expenses? As mentioned in the previous article, I have to separate my trades from my daily expenses. 

In this case, I have done / will be doing the following:

• 2 Bank Accounts + 2 Wallets
  - Savings Account: For my Personal Saving. I will credit at least 10% of my Monthly Allowance into this account.
  - Main Account: My main account for my daily expenses, which includes Food, Transport and other non-MTG related expenses
  - Wallet 1: My wallet "Duh.."
  - Wallet 2: An old wallet will be used as a "Bank" Account for my MTG Trades.
• A couple of Excel sheets
  - Budget/Expenses: The main excel sheet which delegates my budget into the various areas of expenditure.
  - Collection: This holds my MTG Trade inventory and my collection. The MTG Trade Inventory is the same as the Project: Zero List I have on Google Drive. I may need to streamline this part.
  - The Inventory (2 Sheets); Rares and C/U. I may expand it to 3 if necessary or 2 would suffice at the moment.
  - Collection (1 Sheet); This holds the Foil Planeswalkers and Gods and the amount I buy at.
  - Speculation List (1 Sheet); My speculation list
• 10+ Boxes of commons and uncommons, semi-sorted.
  Bulk out my commons if possible once sorted and update the remaining to my Inventory List
• 2 9x9 Binders, 1 4x4 Binders
  - 1 9x9 Binder: Planeswalker Collection
  - 1 9x9 Binder: This one is a ring file with 9x9 Sleeves. At the moment, it is holding some of the more valuable commons and uncommons. I may use this for trades
  - 1 4x4 Binder: This one will hold as my Trade Binder. But I'm looking to change this as a 9x9 ring binder as well, which then I can use it to store my rares for trade and the 4x4 binder will be used as a secondary binder for trades too. (More on this later)
• 3-4 Storage boxes, 1 used for bulk rares + 2 Medium-Sized drawers for storage
  I'll leave it be. My prioirty is to expand the Bulk rare collection first (Storage Boxes?). I also need to account space for Mail trade and deck building logistics. (2 drawers?)

I'll spring into action upon this post. But, some will require time and I do not have the time until after my exams. Hopefully this new organisational structure and workflow will help out in closing out the finance taps I have been facing prior to this. Expect to see the results in my efforts within 2 months! Good luck to myself!

I know these are simple things for some of you, but understand that I have no business and finance education background and what I am doing is learning these by experience. I've failed enough to learn a few lessons, but the lesson will not end. I'm merely improving on what I have learnt so far. The things I've learnt so far are applicable.