How good is your record keeping?

...one of these days...

 

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I too keep records of all my coin purchases in an Excel file. The file has numerous tabs for example; exonumia, type set, foreign, ancient, USA, commemoratives, errors, currency etc. I have column headings for type of coin, type of metal, purchase date, purchase price, vendor, grade, tpg service, and slab #. I do this for a few reasons: 1. I am some what anal retentive about keeping records of purchases 2. For insurance purposes, and 3. To serve as guide for my wife if I should predecease her so that she doesn't get ripped off when she has to sell.

 

There seems to be the guys with spreadsheets that document everything and magpies like me with a collection of shiny baubles but virtually nobody who is in between.

 

I'm one of those spreadsheet types. I have a spreadsheet showing date purchased, description, cost (w/o postage), postage cost, exchange rate (when applicable), dealer/vendor purchased from, venue or website purchased from, any notes I want to collect, and the day the coin arrived in my hands (for show or in-person purchases, the date purchased and arrival dates are identical).

All of this information goes back at least 10 years (maybe more, I haven't scrolled up in a while). Only once have I had the courage to hit the "sum total" on the "purchase price" column - that's something I won't do again. The problem with keeping records is that it's easy to determine how much one spends - the amounts always surprise me when I look at them. So, perhaps, maybe it's best to never look at them?

 

Not as good as it should be. Like a poster above said this is a hobby not a business.

 

I had receipts and records for paid bills stored for 20+ years.
After the fire.
I've been not so interested in being as organized.

 

In a Notebook, In a safe, Guarded by ferocious dog!

 

I have been using a program called Coin Elite for many years. You can buy the updated prices about twice per year. The prices are pretty close to auction prices.
It works really well and adding a new coin is fast.

But here is the problem. Two lawyers and two CPAs have told me that it's not proof enough of the cost basis for the IRS. They want something on paper to prove the cost. I could change any figure at any time in the program. Without an invoice from the seller, the IRS can call the cost bases as $0. That would really hurt.

Has anyone here ever had to deal with this face to face with an IRS agent?

 

I have email invoices from every one of my eBay purchases. Many sellers include a printed invoice; some I've saved, some I haven't.

Every. Single. Invoice. has been a printout.

There was never anything stopping me from going back and setting up a document with whatever price I imagine, printing that out, and saving it as an invoice. Nothing to stop me from editing my email archives and changing prices.

Of course, as far as I know we're still in a world where emailed documents carry no weight, but faxed documents are regarded as true copies -- even though it's been trivially easy for years to generate whatever document you want and send it out over a fax modem, and spoof caller ID to make it seem like it was sent from anyone you please. Or, of course, just send a printout to your multifunction printer that looks like a received fax.

I guess what I'm saying is demanding paper records doesn't make any sense, but it doesn't have to. So, if I'm audited for my coin purchases, guess I'm screwed. What a surprise! Guess I'll go back to saving ever scrap of paper. Good thing they just clear-cut the woods behind our property and sent everything to the paper mill.

 

I already pay an accountant to handle my business I'm not about to pay somebody to keep track of my collections. When I sell it will be cash only. If I make any money on them it won't be much.

 

No reason I can think of that you'd ever be audited for your hobby purchases. Your hobby SALES is another story altogether. That's where your acquisition costs for the coins sold would be audited.

 

I don't understand anything in this Thread. It all seems complicated.

I have 41 Metamucil containers (large size). For a while I would use a pencil and write .01 or .05 or .10 or .25 or .50 on the top of the container. It became exhausting, so I gave up that stupid practice, and just putting whatever was in my pocket into the same container...sort of a mix and match. It has a pleasant side benefit, because when they are full, she can't pick them up easily and she gets irritated trying to count the contents.

Before, she would head like a rabid dog to the ones marked .25 and .50, and the containers would seem to be emptier each day. I caught on to the sleight of hand, and marked a couple with the same denomination and filled them with washers/screws/nails, etc. half way, and top them off with cents. That really pizzed her off, because she couldn't really say anything without admitting her octopus fins had been in the jar, because up to then it was always "...I didn't take the cookies; you probably thought the containers were full...".

So, for the last couple of years, every now and then I "seed" a container with all kinds of stuff I have used bird seed, chicken feed, etc., just to help her go to Mass with a clear conscience.

I aint got no stinkin' record.

 

Well, I have reported my (meager) profits from selling. That presumably makes those sales fair game for "show us your purchase receipts".

 

Why?

 

Its actually pretty easy.

Inflation is adjusted to the year I bought it. I could do it to the month, but that seems unnecessary.

I use the Consumer Price Index, which does also account for deflation (although that is rare) : https://www.usinflationcalculator.c...and-annual-percent-changes-from-1913-to-2008/

It is updated monthly, so I just copy the number into my excel spreadsheet, and then I have a formula in each of my coin entries that pulls the data and adjusts the cost for inflation.

 

I'm thinking that, at least in some years, we had to report how much we got paid and cost-of-goods/expenses separately. It's that latter part that would have to be documented.

TBH, my wife does our taxes, and I just give her the info she needs. It's been a year or two since I've sold anything, so while I have spreadsheets with prices and costs from the years I did sell, I don't remember if that info made it onto the tax forms.

 

Thanks for the clarification. My interest is more geared to the why would you want to adjust for inflation? I don't see the prices of numismatics being tied to inflation or the CPI. Any more than the stock market being tied to the CPI.

When I asked about inflation tied to what date, your acquisition date was a foregone conclusion for the beginning date. I guess I worded it poorly. I thought it was obvious I meant the end date that was a moving target. Hence the dog chasing its own tail comment.

 

It's a shame that our hobby became another money grab for .gov to reach into our pockets. I do see that some make a living buying and selling coins. For them keeping detailed records should be a no-brainer.

On the hand, the casual collector who started collecting as a youth some 50+ years ago is saddled with literally an impossible task of trying to recreate history without any means of proving or documenting those transactions. Those who started collecting within the last 25 years or so have an advantage to their documentation. They've known they needed to maintain meticulous records, if for nothing more than the information readily available on the internet. As a young collector in my youth, there was not one inkling that proof of cost and acquisition would be needed anytime in the future.

 

You reminded me of another potential issue. When we're talking years passing, I have receipts saved from my street rod build that has been going on for 20+ years that are nothing but blank pieces of paper now. Over the years, the ink has faded away completely. Coincidentally, those documents are in my coin cabinet and have been all along!