Import purchases

Understand purchase placeholders

Creating a manual purchase also creates placeholders and a capture batch. A placeholder holds purchase cost while waiting for your card; it is labeled Placeholder and does not mean an existing card was matched.

Capture your cards or choose existing cards for the purchase. Before adding existing cards, wait for the final cost preview. It shows how many eligible placeholders will be replaced and the cost your selected cards will receive, including any remaining placeholders and costs you set by hand.

The selection stays visible while saving. After success, the actual cards appear in the purchase and the replaced placeholders disappear. The confirmation reports saved costs. If a connection is interrupted, CardZen checks the purchase before offering another attempt.

Only placeholders without any photos are replaced. A placeholder with front, back, combined, or extra photos stays linked to the purchase so you can finish it or remove it yourself.

Why purchases matter

Purchases are the foundation for cost basis. Without them, CardZen can still track your cards and listings, but profit and ROI won't be complete because it doesn't know what you paid.

Three ways to add purchases

Open Purchases from the sidebar. The buttons at the top right give you three options:

• Import from eBay — pull your eBay buys automatically (within eBay's 60-day import window).
• Upload a spreadsheet — takes you to Loose ends → Import, where CardZen matches your rows to the cards you already have, records the purchases, and gives you one Undo.
• + New purchase — enter a purchase by hand for repacks, shows, or retail buys.
• When adding or editing a purchase, open Purchase Date to type a date in MM/DD/YYYY format, use a quick selection, or choose a day on the calendar. Finish typing, then press Enter or leave the field to apply the date. Use the month and year menus to find older dates. Incomplete or unavailable dates revert to the previous selection.

eBay purchase sync

eBay purchase import uses the current 60-day window. Re-syncing can fill missing item title, photo, item link, eBay item number, tax, buyer fee, and itemized fee values when eBay provides them.

Each imported purchase also creates a purchase batch, with its cards waiting as awaiting photos — ready to capture when the package arrives.

Read the Purchases page

• The top bar shows Total spend, Cards purchased, Avg per card, and Unallocated spend (cost not yet assigned to a card).
• Filter by All, No cards, Partial, All cards added, or any card tag to find the purchases you need.
• Each row shows the source, a cards-added progress bar, total cost, and Avg per card, with an Add · 1 scan button that uses the eBay listing photo to add a card.
• Avg per card uses the expected card count, or the number of linked cards when larger. A box counts as the cards inside it, rather than one purchased box. The top-bar average excludes purchases whose card count is unknown.

Export purchases to CSV

The Export CSV button sits at the top of the page beside Import. Its label always states exactly what one click downloads: every loaded purchase, the current filtered view, or just the purchases you have selected.

The Tags column combines distinct tags from linked cards, separated by semicolons. A tag may apply to only some cards in the purchase. The file uses raw values (the full purchase date, order description, seller, costs, and order numbers), so you can feed it back through Upload a spreadsheet. Excel may reformat dates and drop leading zeros from order and item numbers, so check those columns before re-importing.

The page loads your full purchase history. If an account ever exceeds 5,000 purchases, a banner explains that only the most recent 5,000 are shown, totaled, and exported.

Per Card Cost contains the same average shown in the table. Individual cards can have different assigned costs. Quantity remains the purchase quantity; an unknown per-card cost is left blank.

Choose where a purchase came from

Manual purchases support card shops and shows, auction marketplaces, social or private sales, breaks, gifts, trades, Power Packs, and external vault transfers. Choose the closest source so purchase history stays useful when you filter and review cost basis.

The iPhone app asks for the same purchase: pick a source, then fill in the seller, quantity, and total cost — those three are required.

After import

On iPhone, a purchase opens with the item title and total first, followed by its linked cards, progress, purchase details, and cost breakdown. Use Edit at the top to correct the purchase without losing that context.

1. 1Open a purchase to see its Cost breakdown (subtotal, tax, shipping, total) and Cost allocation (allocated vs remaining).
2. 2Capture the package into its purchase batch, or use + Add card to assign existing cards.
3. 3Override a card's share if the even split isn't right.
4. 4Edit the purchase to correct its shipping, tax, or total when they affect your cost basis.
5. 5If a purchase is refunded or cancelled, open Edit purchase and choose Refunded or Cancelled. Keep the purchase record so eBay sync can recognize it; shipping updates will preserve that status. Received and Completed purchases also keep their status when eBay reports an earlier shipping step.

Cards in a purchase

Each purchase lists the cards it contains and how the cost splits across them. Cards captured into the purchase's batch appear automatically; cost splits evenly by default, and any card's share can be overridden.

Delete an eBay purchase

Deleting a purchase imported by eBay sync excludes its eBay item from CardZen. The purchase and matching imported listings, sales, and purchases stay hidden from ledgers and financial totals after later syncs. The purchase's cost stops counting until it is restored. Existing cards and links are kept, and nothing changes on eBay.

On Purchases, choose Excluded items, then Restore to include the item and its related imported records again. The purchase stays included on the next sync. Purchases entered manually or imported from a file still delete permanently. For a returned purchase you want to keep in your history, choose Edit, then set Status to Refunded.

Exclude non-card eBay items

Choose Exclude from CardZen on an imported listing, sale, or purchase. Confirm to hide that eBay item and matching imported transactions from your ledgers and financial totals. This does not end the listing or change an eBay order. Existing cards and links remain intact.

The exclusion is remembered by eBay item number, so later syncs and imports carrying that number remain excluded. Records without an eBay item number cannot use this option. A new eBay item number is a different item.

Choose Excluded items on the same ledger, then Restore to include it and its related imported records again. This is separate from sales you previously deleted or rejected, which retain their existing restore workflow.

On mobile, Exclusions (web) opens the authenticated ledger with the same exclude and restore actions.