Trades & collection buyouts

A trade is a sale and a purchase that settle in goods instead of cash. The wizard (Sales screen → "Record a trade…") creates both atomically: what you gave sells at the trade value on a no-fee Trade channel; what you received becomes a purchase at the same value, setting each item's landed cost. A below-cost warning on the give side is a confirmation, never a block — bad trades happen and the books should record them.

Both sides must carry one value — the deal's value. If your entered totals differ, that's two price levels in one transaction (your selling prices vs. your buying prices), and recording both raw numbers would count the gap as profit twice: once today, once again when the received goods sell. The Balance buttons reconcile with one click, rescaling the other side proportionally to the cent.

Which side to balance at — whichever side's prices the deal was actually negotiated on:

• Collection buyouts → balance at the received total. You appraised their goods with your cash-offer discipline (say 70–85% of market); your outgoing product was just the payment method. The buyout discount stays in the received items' low cost basis and realizes as flip margin when each piece sells at full market — a good buyout reads as modest margin today, strong flip margins later.
• You were effectively the seller → balance at the gave total. A customer wanted your product at your prices and paid in goods — record it as a sale at your retail, with their goods entering at that value.
• Both sides fuzzy → balance at the lower total. Conservative: it defers profit until the goods actually sell and prove their value.

The fallback test: imagine the same deal in cash — whatever amount would have changed hands is the deal value.

Shipping: the two fields are for cash you actually paid. What you pay to sendreduces the give side's realized margin; what you pay to receive joins the received items' landed cost. If the other party paid, enter nothing; on a split, each records only their own share. And if shipping was settled in goods — "throw in another box and call it even" — don't enter it as shipping: the extra item on the give side already carries that cost, and balancing absorbs it. Only money that left your bank belongs in the shipping fields.