How do I combine multiple items won by the same bidder into one email and one invoice ?

This seems to be the most often asked question from new users. AuctionSage's ability to combine unlimited items won by the same bidder in a single email or invoice is quite easy and efficient.

Let's assume you just refreshed data and you are viewing the Current & Recent Data. View the screen shot below

The green gavel on the left of the screen indicates the auction has ended with a winner. Had the auction ended without a winner it would be a red gavel. See the help section on Icon Indicators for more information on the status indicator icons.

So now you want to send out the Congratulatory email, notifying bidders they have won the item.

In the above screenshot you see that user "bob-at-mavin" has won multiple items so you probably want to combine them into one email/invoice. To do so, hold the Control Key down and click on each item. This is how you select individual items. View the screen shot below where the three items won by this single user have been selected

Now click the invoice button on the AuctionSage Toolbar as shown below

Now the invoice screen will appear with the selected items combined as depicted below

Now you can select the email you wish to send or update status and an invoice number will be assigned which ties these three items together permanently. In the future, should you bring up the invoice for any of these items, all three will appear in the invoice screen because they are tied together by the invoice number.

*** While the spreadsheet shows individual items, the invoice number ties those individual items together and the invoice screen displays them.

If you click the invoice button to combine selected items and the user is also the winner of other items you didn't select you will see the screen below notifying you of that fact

If you see this notice you may want to close the invoice and review the spreadsheet and select all the items this user has won. You may also see a similar notice where it says the user is winning other auctions still running. In this case you may wish to wait and see if he wins the other item(s) before combining. AS will also notify you if the buyer has other items in Congrats Sent, in which case you may wish to add these items to that existing invoice. Whether you do or not is up to you and how you conduct your business, of course.

BUT WAIT !

There is a much easier way to combine items using the End Status Sort.

As described above, the end status column is (by default) the left most column and has the icons indicating end status. If you click the column header for the end status column it will sort according to end status.

Click the End Status Column Header for End Status Sort

Click the end status column header once and items are sorted with all winning items (green gavel) moved to the top and sorted by userid for easy combining. Click the end status column header again and items are sorted with running items on top, sorted by Auction End date.

For the purposes of this demonstration, click the end status column header until you have all the green gavel items on top, sorted by userid.

Now select all the green gavel items by first clicking on the first item at the top of the list and then hold down the shift key and scroll to the last green gavel item and click on it. Now all winning items are selected. Click the invoice button and all items won by the same bidder are automatically combined. Process each invoice (update status, send emails, etc) and click the "Next" button on the invoice screen to proceed to the next invoice. In this manner you quickly process all the won items with automatic combining of items won by the same bidder.

You can have the Current & Recent Data automatically sort by End Status by going to File - Setup - AutoSort and check the "by End Status" option. With this option checked the current & recent data is automatically sorted by end status after each time you refresh data.