Beyond the structural fields that drive cost basis math, the Record Purchase form includes three optional recordkeeping fields in the Transaction Details section: Dealer / Source, Name, and Notes.
None of them affect a single number on your dashboard, but together they're what makes a months-old transaction findable, recognizable, and useful when you come back to it.
This article covers what each field is for, how the dealer dropdown works, and where the values show up across the app later.
For the full Record Purchase walkthrough, see How to record a purchase.
The three fields, at a glance
A quick orientation before the deeper details:
Dealer / Source: Who you bought from. A searchable dropdown with a private list of your dealers, plus a built-in "Private Sale" option for peer-to-peer purchases.
Name: An optional label for the transaction. Free text, useful as a search hook later (e.g. "Birthday APMEX order").
Notes: Free text, anything you want to remember about the purchase: order confirmation numbers, condition notes, sentimental context.
All three are optional. None of them affects cost basis, premium, or any other calculation. Their value is in recordkeeping.
The Dealer / Source field
Click the field to open a searchable dropdown. The dropdown contains:
The standard dealer list: A pre-populated set of common bullion dealers — APMEX, JM Bullion, Kitco, SD Bullion, and so on — that ships with every account. These are visible to all users and don't need to be added; they're already there.
Any dealers you've personally added: Custom entries you've created on previous transactions, mixed into the same list.
"Private Sale" option: This is one of the standard entries, included by default for peer-to-peer purchases, gifts, inherited items, and anything else that doesn't have a "vendor" in the conventional sense.
The search bar at the top of the dropdown filters the list as you type. It works against both the standard entries and your personal additions.
If your search doesn't match anything in the list, an Add row appears at the bottom with your typed name. Click it, and the new dealer is saved to your personal dealer list for future transactions.
A few details worth knowing:
The standard list is shared across all users: APMEX is the same APMEX in every account.
Your personal additions are private to your account: Dealers you add yourself aren't shared with other users and don't appear in anyone else's dropdown.
Spelling matters for your own additions: "Local Coins" and "local coins" can become separate entries unless you spell consistently.
Leaving the field blank is fine: Some users record cash purchases or trades with no dealer attribution.
The Name field
The Name field is a free-text label for the transaction as a whole. It's optional, has no validation beyond a reasonable length cap, and doesn't affect any calculation.
Where it earns its keep is as a search hook months later when you're trying to find a specific transaction.
A few naming conventions that tend to work well:
By event: "Birthday APMEX order," "Anniversary stack," "Christmas 2025 buy."
By context: "Tax refund stack," "Local coin show, March," "First post-merger order."
By campaign: "Sub-$30 silver run," "Q1 platinum dip buy," "Premium spike sale."
By dealer + date: Only if you do enough transactions with the same dealer that the dealer name alone isn't specific enough — e.g. "JM Bullion, late March."
What names tend not to help with:
Restating what's already in other fields: "1 oz Gold Eagle from APMEX on March 1" duplicates the product, dealer, and date columns. Use the name for context the other fields don't capture.
Internal codes nobody else would understand: If you might forget what "BX-4-A" means, the future-you reading the History page might too. Aim for human-readable.
You can leave the field blank, and the transaction is still searchable by dealer, date, and product. The name is just an additional hook.
The Notes field
The Notes field is free text, with no fixed schema, no required structure, and no length limit you'll realistically hit. It shows up in the expanded view of the transaction on the History page and in CSV exports.
Common uses:
The dealer's order or invoice number: Useful for cross-referencing your dealer's records or for warranty claims.
Condition or grade notes: "BU condition," "PR70 from PCGS," "scratched, light tarnish."
Packaging notes: "Original tube of 20," "in capsule," "broken from roll."
Sentimental context: "Gift from Dad," "from the estate sale at the Henderson house."
Tax-relevant context: "Paid via wire," "via crypto," "claimed as collectible for tax purposes."
A few practical notes:
The field is for the transaction as a whole, not per-item. If you bought five Eagles and want to record a unique serial number for one specific coin, the place for that is the individual inventory item's userRef field on the Holdings page.
It's plain text. No formatting, no Markdown, no rich text. Whatever you type is what you'll see later.
It's included in CSV exports. If you treat the notes field as private context, remember it travels with the transaction wherever it goes.
Where all three show up later
Once a transaction is saved, the three fields surface in the following places:
The Transactions History page list: The dealer name and transaction name are visible directly in the row; the notes are revealed when you expand the transaction.
The History page search bar: Matches against dealer name, transaction name, notes, and product names. Searching for "APMEX" returns any transaction with APMEX as the dealer; searching for "BU" returns any transaction whose notes contain "BU."
CSV exports of transactions: Dealer, name, and notes are each their own column. See Exporting your transactions as CSV.
The expanded transaction detail view: Shows everything you entered, including notes, alongside the line items.
The fields don't appear on the Dashboard, the Holdings page, or the Analytics page directly. They're transaction-level metadata, and the surfaces that show them are the transaction-level ones.
Transaction-level vs. item-level annotations
A small but important distinction: the three fields in this article are about the transaction as a whole.
If you want to label or annotate an individual coin or bar — a serial number, a storage location, a sentimental nickname, a specific mint year — those go on the inventory item itself, not the transaction.
Three item-level fields exist for this:
Nickname: A personal name for a specific piece: "Grandma's Eagle," "the first one I ever bought."
User reference: A free-text identifier: serial number, storage location, certificate number, anything you want to attach.
User date: A date annotation: mint year, acquisition date if different from purchase date, anything date-flavored.
Where to go next
How to record a purchase: The full Record Purchase form walkthrough.
Adding a nickname to a specific item: Item-level labels.
Adding a user reference: Item-level identifiers.
Adding a date annotation: Item-level date annotations.
Exporting your transactions as CSV: Where these fields show up in exports.