Document Storage: The Paper Behind the Provenance

Receipts, invoices, certificates and appraisals, kept privately with the copies they belong to. For the Dealer plan.

What It Is

A book's history is written on paper that is not the book: the receipt from the bookshop, the dealer's invoice, the auction settlement, the certificate that comes with a signature, the appraisal your insurer asked for, the binder's bill, sometimes an export licence. Shelvd already records what that paper says, in provenance, valuations and condition history. Document Storage keeps the paper itself.

A document is a file with a type, a date, a counterparty, a reference and an amount. You link it to the books it concerns and, for each book, to the record it proves: the purchase, the valuation, the restoration. One auction settlement can cover twelve lots; one receipt can cover four books. You upload it once.

Private by Design

Documents are not photos of the book. An invoice carries names, addresses and prices, so documents live in separate, private storage:

Only you can open them. Another account that somehow had the link gets "not found".
They never appear in catalogs, marketplace exports, PDF inserts or public pages.
Support staff helping you through a support session can see that a document exists, but cannot open it.

Adding a Document

On a book, scroll to Documents and choose Add document. Drop a PDF or a picture, choose a file, or, on a phone, take a photo of the receipt.

Pick the record the document proves. Shelvd fills in what it already knows from that record: a purchase suggests a receipt with the shop, the date and the price; an auction purchase suggests an auction invoice; a professional valuation suggests an appraisal report. For a receipt or invoice, you can also mark the purchase's evidence in one click. Nothing is changed without that tick.

PDF files and pictures (JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, TIFF) are accepted, up to the size your plan allows per file. Shelvd checks that a file really is what it says it is. If you upload a file you already stored, Shelvd offers to link the existing document instead of keeping a second copy.

Already stored the document? Link existing finds it by title, counterparty or reference.

Letting Claude Read a Receipt

A receipt is a list of books with prices, and typing it out twice is a waste of an evening. Read with AI hands one document to Claude for one AI credit.

Claude reads the shop, the town, the date, the reference and every line. Shelvd then looks up the book each line means: on the ISBN first, then on a catalogue number, then on the title with the author. You see the lines next to the books, and you decide.

Nothing is written until you tick a line. A ticked line records a purchase in that book's provenance, with the shop and town, the date and the price from the receipt, and this document as its evidence. A price also becomes a valuation, the same way the book form does it. Lines that are not books, the magazine, the postage, the discount, are shown but cannot be ticked, because a receipt carries more than your collection.

The Documents Page

Documents in the navigation lists everything you stored. Filter by type (acquisition, sale, authenticity, valuation, condition, licences and transport, and more), by year, by whether a document is linked to a book, and by licences that expire within 90 days. Search looks in the title, counterparty, reference and notes.

Click a document to open its panel: open or download the file, edit its details, link it to more books, unlink it, or delete it.

What Happens When…

You delete a book. Its documents stay. An invoice is still needed after the book has gone, and it may cover other books.
You delete a document. The file, its preview and its links are removed. The books stay.
You change plans. Adding documents needs the Dealer plan. Everything you stored stays yours: you can still open, download, edit, unlink and delete it on any plan.
You want everything out. Download all (ZIP) on the Documents page gives you every file, sorted by year and type, with a spreadsheet of the details and the books each document belongs to.
You delete your account. Your documents are deleted with it. Download the archive first if you need the files for your accounts.

Why Keep the Paper

Insurance. After damage or theft, an insurer asks for proof of purchase and a recent appraisal.
Selling on the margin scheme. Dealers who sell second-hand goods under the VAT margin scheme keep the purchase and sale invoice for each item.
Crossing borders. In the EU, books over 100 years old and worth more than €50,000 need an export licence, and incunabula always do. Since June 2025, importing books over 200 years old and worth more than €18,000 into the EU needs an importer statement.
Provenance. A letter from a previous owner or a library's release note is often the only proof of where a copy has been.

Shelvd does not give legal advice or check whether a licence was needed. It makes sure you can find the paper when someone asks.