Practical guide / Craft Fair & Market Workbook 1.2

What did this market actually earn after stock, fees and costs?

Connect stock taken, returned and damaged to actual sales, refunds and event expenses. Close the stock loop before comparing the result from one market to another. The completed fictional market has 10 net units sold, a zero stock difference and a 30 result after selling fees, consumed stock, damage and expenses. A separate cancelled event retains its 15 actual cost.

Illustration of a craft market stall, display crates and a price tag

Your first useful result: Give the market its own plan before close-out. Follow the first task

Actual recalculated Market plan after a fictional planned price change to EUR 14. — Actual locally recalculated worksheet; fictional example. In a disposable copy, change planned price to EUR 14. Planned result becomes EUR 99.50; recorded result remains EUR 30. Sales/expenses use the cut-off; stock, damage, returns and hours are undated close-out snapshots. Follow the before-and-after records

Save the assumptions with the event

Create an event budget and a product forecast for each chosen product. Enter deliberate zero where a known amount is zero.

Market plan sums product forecasts and subtracts event costs once. Recorded sources stay independent; invalid records block recorded outputs.

Review: Review the planned result and coverage. After the day, reconcile stock and compare against the recorded result, including products without forecasts.

Prepare the stand

Create a valid event, then link each Market Prep task or material to its Event ID. Enter an owner, due date, manual confirmation and the applicable packing quantities.

The E-01 example has three preparation items: two Ready and one Overdue. Packing all 20 paper bags makes that third item ready, provided its confirmation remains valid.

Review: Review every warning and pending action. Readiness describes the list you entered; it does not check a venue or confirm a task for you.

Record the stock and actual sales

Use one Stock row per event/product. Record units taken, returned and damaged with historical cost. Sales separately records gross units, refunds, receipts and selling fees.

ST-01 takes 20 units, returns nine and records one damaged. SL-01 sells 12 and refunds two: ten net units sold, EUR 120 net sales and zero stock difference.

Review: Resolve stock differences before relying on profit. Equipment quantities in Market Prep do not alter sale stock.

Review the actual result

Record actual event expenses and hours. Keep a cancelled event and any non-refundable costs in the record.

E-01 has net sales 120 less fees 6, stock consumed 40, damage 4 and expenses 40: profit 30, or 5 per actual hour. E-02 retains cancelled cost 15, giving dashboard period profit 15.

Review: Compare events on recorded results. Product contribution and event profit answer different questions; neither is a forecast of earnings.

Confirm the equipment return

After the event, update Returned qty in Market Prep for each material whose Return expected is Yes. Keep tasks and consumable supplies separate.

Two of three packed display trays are returned in the example, so Return state says Check return. Recording the third tray clears only that check.

Review: Physically confirm the return and save your workbook. The return check does not book an expense, change financial stock or synchronise Inventory.

Check the assumptions.

60 events; 100 products; 150 event/product stock records; 300 sales records; 200 expense records; 150 preparation records.
One currency. Manual receipts and historical costs; no POS, barcode, tax, payment collection, accounting or marketplace integration.
Refunded units are treated as reusable stock. Record non-reusable units in damaged stock. Review stock differences before trusting profit.
A returned unsold unit is not an expense; current list price never reprices a recorded sale. Event hours are manually entered actual hours.
Equipment and supplies in Market Prep do not change sale stock or profit. Readiness needs manual confirmation; there are no automatic venue requirements or reminders.
Native Excel verification pending.
Planned sales assume entered quantities sell at entered prices, without refunds or damage. Event-cost coverage holds the planned mix constant. Sales/expenses use a date cut-off; stock, returns, damage and hours are undated entered close-out snapshots, not a historical reconstruction.

Keep a copy you can return to.

Keep the supplied clean and example files unchanged. Save your own working file with a useful name, such as craft-market-2027-home.xlsx, and keep a dated backup before a large edit. A purchased ZIP is the blank source, not a backup of your entries.

If an input or formula is replaced

Undo the edit while it is still available, or return to a known good backup. If you need a fresh clean file, transfer only your records into its marked input cells and follow the setup guide again. Do not paste whole sheets over the supplied formulas, validations or reference lists. Check IDs, units, dates and linked results against the example before relying on the copy.

When the supplied rows are full

60 events · 300 sales records · 150 preparation records · 60 saved event budgets · 400 product forecasts. Calculation ranges and validations have fixed capacities. A new row below a table does not prove that every linked result includes it.

For a separate period, project or volume, preserve the old workbook and start a named clean copy. If records must carry forward, record exactly which inputs you transfer, preserve their references and compare the opening and closing figures. Avoid copying historical activity as both an opening amount and a new movement. There is no automatic migration between files.

Inspect the workbook before you choose.

View its real sheets and a fictional calculation example.

Explore Craft Fair & Market Workbook

Written for version 1.2. Examples describe the supplied workflow; they are not customer results.