FlipperHelper FAQ

FlipperHelper is a free reselling app for iOS and Android who buy items at car boot sales, flea markets, charity shops, and markets, then sell them on platforms like eBay, Vinted, and Facebook Marketplace. It tracks every item from purchase through listing to sale, automatically calculating your real profit after all expenses.

The app covers the entire reselling lifecycle: snap a photo of what you buy, log the price and where you got it, mark which platforms you list it on, record the sale, and see your actual profit after entry fees, transport costs, and currency conversions are factored in.

FlipperHelper is for anyone who buys secondhand items to resell for profit. This includes car boot sale flippers, charity shop resellers, flea market sellers, eBay side hustlers, Vinted sellers, Depop sellers, and full-time reselling business operators. The app is used by resellers in the UK, US, Canada, and Europe.

Yes, FlipperHelper is completely free to download and use from the App Store. There are no subscriptions, no in-app purchases, no premium tiers, and no ads. Every feature is available to every user at no cost.

FlipperHelper runs on iPhone (iOS 17.0 or later) and Android phones (Android 8.0 or later). Both versions are free and have full feature parity, and they share the same backup format so you can move your data between them. There is no iPad, Mac, or web version.

To add an item, tap the plus button, add up to 10 photos (take new ones with the camera or pick several from your camera roll at once), enter the purchase price, and optionally select the market and seller. The app automatically generates a unique SKU code for each item using Crockford Base32 encoding (e.g. FH-20D6G0NR) for easy human-readable identification.

Yes. Each item can hold up to 10 photos, so you can capture the front, back, label, and any flaws before you list it. Take new photos with the camera or add several from your camera roll at once, and choose which photo is the main image shown in your item list. Tap any photo to view it full-screen and zoom in. All of an item's photos sync to Google Drive, and every photo link is included in the Google Sheets export.

Yes. On the Add Item screen, tap "Customise fields" to open a sheet where you turn individual fields on or off — title, market, seller, purchase date, and return date — each with a short description of what it's for. Show only what you actually use so adding an item stays fast. The photo and price always show. Turning a field off clears any value you'd entered for it, so nothing hidden is saved by mistake, and your choice is remembered for the next item.

Yes. Turn on the return date field and set a deadline for any item you could take back if it doesn't sell — useful for shop stock bought on a returns policy. Your item list then shows how many days you have left to return it. The countdown turns red when three days or fewer remain, and switches to "Too late" once the window has passed, so you can spot at a glance which unsold items still have a return window open.

You choose. In Settings, "Days to Sell" can be measured either from the purchase date (the total time you held the item) or from the date you listed it on the platform it sold on (how long it took to sell once it was live). Items that were never listed — like car boot or offline sales — fall back to the purchase date. The item list's "Sold in N days" label updates to match whichever basis you pick.

FlipperHelper lets you manually mark items as listed on any of 16 selling platforms. This is listing tracking, not automated cross-posting — you list items on each platform yourself, then toggle them in FlipperHelper to record where each item is listed and when. Supported platforms:

• eBay
• Vinted
• Facebook
• Depop
• Poshmark
• Mercari
• OfferUp
• Craigslist
• ThredUp
• Etsy
• Gumtree
• Shpock
• Preloved
• Nextdoor
• Grailed
• ShopThing

You can enable or disable platforms in Settings to show only the ones you use.

When marking an item as sold, you can choose from 18 sold platforms: all 16 listing platforms plus two additional options:

• Car Boot — for items sold at physical markets and car boot sales
• Sold Offline — for private sales or other channels

The app auto-suggests the appropriate payment method (Cash for physical sales, Card for online platforms).

FlipperHelper calculates profit per item as sold price minus purchase price. If the buy and sell currencies differ, the exchange rates captured at the time of each transaction are used to convert both amounts to your home currency before calculating.

Entry fees, transport costs, and other expenses are tracked separately and shown in the Money Flow dashboard for your overall business profit picture.

Each item moves through three statuses:

• New — purchased but not yet listed for sale
• Listed — listed on one or more selling platforms, with the listing date tracked for each platform individually
• Sold — sale recorded with the sell price, platform where it sold, date, and payment method (Cash or Card)

The status updates automatically as you take actions on the item.

The Money Flow dashboard shows your monthly financial overview: total revenue from sold items, total profit, all expenses broken down by category (entry fees, transport, other), the percentage of your items that are listed versus unlisted, and average days-to-sell. You can navigate between months to compare your reselling performance over time.

At the car boot sale, open FlipperHelper and tap the plus button to add each item you buy. Snap a photo, enter the price, and the app auto-detects which market you're at via GPS. If the market charges an entry fee, the app prompts you to log it on your first purchase of the day.

When you get home and list items on eBay, Vinted, or other platforms, mark them as listed in the app. When something sells, record the sale — FlipperHelper calculates your real profit per item after purchase price and currency conversion. Your Money Flow dashboard shows total profit for the week or month after subtracting entry fees, transport, and all other expenses.

FlipperHelper is not an accounting or tax tool, but it produces detailed records that are useful at tax time. The Google Sheets export includes every item with purchase price, sale price, profit, currencies, exchange rates, dates, and SKU codes. A separate expenses sheet lists all entry fees, transport costs, and other business expenses with dates and amounts.

Each item's unique SKU can be matched against exports from selling platforms like eBay or Vinted, making it easier for you or your accountant to reconcile records. The app tracks cash vs card payments, which helps with record-keeping. All data can also be exported as a ZIP file for archiving.

The Home screen shows your total stock value — the combined purchase cost of all items you own but haven't sold yet. It also shows the number of items in stock and what percentage are already listed on selling platforms.

Tap into it to see items grouped by purchase date, with the market where each was bought. You can share individual days' purchases or your full stock (up to 50 items) to social media. The idea is that this money isn't spent — it's converted from cash into inventory that will generate future profit.

The Money Flow dashboard can display your finances by week, by month, or by a custom date range you set. It shows:

• Made from Flips — number of items sold and total revenue
• Costs — entry fees, transport, and other expenses
• Profit — revenue minus all costs
• Invested in Stock — how much you spent on new inventory during the period

Both the financial summary and the Top Flips view update when you change the time period, making it easy to compare performance across different weeks or months.

Top Flips shows your most profitable sales within the selected time period on the Home screen. It appears when you have three or more completed sales in the period. You can tap any flip to see the full item details, or share your top flips as a visual card to social media. The time period matches whatever you've selected for the Money Flow dashboard — weekly, monthly, or custom.

Hauls are sourcing trips — for example, driving to another city or country to buy stock. You create a Haul by entering a name and the trip's start and end dates. FlipperHelper groups all items purchased and expenses incurred during that period.

Each item and expense can only belong to one Haul (marked with a lock icon once assigned). As items from the trip sell over time, the Haul's profitability updates automatically, showing whether the trip has paid for itself — including transport, entry fees, and all other costs.

This is useful for resellers who do regular sourcing runs: you can see which trips make money and which don't, factoring in every cost from petrol to market entry.

FlipperHelper tracks three expense categories:

• Entry fees — admission costs for market visits, linked to specific markets
• Transport expenses — Car (with subcategories for Gas, Service, and Parking), Bus, Train, Taxi, Van, and Bike Rental
• Other expenses — any custom expense with a memo description (e.g. packaging tape, supplies, postage)

All expense types support multi-currency input.

Entry fees are admission charges for visiting a market or car boot sale. Each entry fee is linked to a specific market and records the amount, date, and optional currency. The app can prompt you to log entry fees when you visit a market, and you can disable this prompt per market with a "don't ask again" toggle.

For markets you've visited before, FlipperHelper shows your previously entered amounts as quick-select options — if the entry is always £6, just tap £6 instead of typing it again.

FlipperHelper supports six transport types:

• Car — with subcategories for Gas, Service, and Parking
• Bus
• Train
• Taxi
• Van
• Bike Rental

Each transport expense records the amount, date, an optional memo, and optional currency for multi-currency tracking.

When you add an entry fee for a market you've visited before, FlipperHelper shows the amounts you've previously entered as quick-select options. If a market always charges £6, you just tap £6 instead of typing it again. This speeds up expense logging at markets you visit regularly.

FlipperHelper supports six currencies:

• US Dollar (USD, $)
• Euro (EUR, €)
• British Pound (GBP, £)
• Canadian Dollar (CAD, CA$)
• Australian Dollar (AUD, A$)
• New Zealand Dollar (NZD, NZ$)

You set a home currency in Settings, and any transaction in a different currency is automatically converted using daily exchange rates.

FlipperHelper fetches daily exchange rates automatically and caches 365 days of rate history locally on your device. When you buy or sell an item in a currency different from your home currency, the rate is captured at the time of the transaction.

The app supports cross-rate calculations via direct, reverse, or common base conversion. You can also manually refresh rates, and the app warns you if rates become stale.

You can save markets with a name, GPS coordinates, and a configurable detection radius (default 5 km). Markets can also have a default currency for multi-currency scenarios. When you open the app near a saved market, FlipperHelper auto-detects your location and suggests that market for new items, saving you time at busy car boot sales.

If you grant location permission, FlipperHelper checks your GPS position against saved market coordinates. When you are within a market's detection radius (default 5 km, configurable per market), that market is automatically suggested when adding new items. This saves time when you are at a car boot sale and want to quickly log purchases without manually selecting the market each time.

Yes, FlipperHelper lets you save sellers and associate them with items you purchase. Each seller record includes their name and an optional linked market. This helps you track which sellers at which markets provide the best stock over time.

FlipperHelper optionally syncs your item photos to Google Drive in a folder called FlipperHelper_App/images/. It uses the drive.file and email OAuth scopes — drive.file limits access to files created by FlipperHelper, and email is used to display your account info in Settings. Photo sync continues in the background via iOS background task continuation even when the app is suspended.

FlipperHelper exports your items and expenses as two separate CSV files uploaded to Google Drive. Google Drive automatically converts these CSVs to Google Sheets format. No Google Sheets API is used.

The items CSV includes columns for SKU, photo URLs (every photo for the item, main image first), prices (buy and sell with currencies and exchange rates), market, seller, listing dates per platform, sale details, payment method, profit in home currency, days to sell, and title. The expenses CSV includes type, subtype, date, amount, market, and memo.

Yes, FlipperHelper supports full data backup and restore as a single ZIP archive. The backup includes all your items, markets, sellers, expenses, hauls, settings, and photos. You can use it to create a safety copy or to transfer your data between devices.

The ZIP uses exactly the same format on iPhone and on the Android app, so a backup made on one platform restores cleanly on the other. Cross-platform compatibility is guaranteed.

On iPhone, FlipperHelper automatically backs up all your data to iCloud. When you switch to a new iPhone and open FlipperHelper, it offers to restore your data from iCloud automatically. You can also trigger a manual iCloud backup from Settings.

This is separate from Google Drive sync (which handles photos and spreadsheet exports) and the portable ZIP export. Between iCloud and the portable ZIP export, your data is protected in multiple independent locations. Android has no iCloud, so the Android app uses a different automatic backup method — see below.

Because Android has no iCloud equivalent, the FlipperHelper Android app backs up differently — but just as automatically. You choose a backup folder once (anywhere on your phone, or inside a cloud-synced folder such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive), and FlipperHelper writes a fresh backup ZIP there in the background, keeping the five most recent copies.

This runs entirely on-device, works offline, and is completely independent of the Google Sheets export. Point it at a cloud-synced folder and your backups are mirrored off-device automatically.

Yes, and it is guaranteed. The iPhone app and the Android app read and write the exact same backup format — a ZIP containing your database and all photos. Export a backup on one device, open it on the other, and everything comes across: items, photos, listing history, expenses, hauls, and settings.

Backups made on an older app version are automatically upgraded when you restore them on a newer one. The only rule is to keep both apps updated, so a backup from a newer version is never opened by an older one.

Your data is safe in multiple places. On iPhone it is automatically backed up to iCloud, so switching to a new iPhone restores everything; on the Android app the same job is done by the automatic backup to your chosen folder. If you connected Google Drive, your item photos and Google Sheets exports remain in your Google Drive permanently — even after deleting the app. You can also use the portable ZIP export to save a complete copy anywhere.

Because the ZIP format is shared across iPhone and Android, you can even switch platforms with it. Even if you stop using FlipperHelper entirely, the Google Drive data can be imported into other tools. Your data is never lost as long as at least one backup exists.

Yes, FlipperHelper is fully offline-first. All data is stored locally on your device. You never need an internet connection to add items, track listings, record sales, log expenses, or view your profits and Money Flow dashboard. Google Drive sync is entirely optional and happens automatically when connectivity becomes available.

Yes. FlipperHelper stores all data locally on your device in a SQLite database. There are no external servers and the developer never sees your data. The only data that leaves your device is what you explicitly choose to sync to your own Google Drive account using the restricted drive.file and email OAuth scopes. The app is designed with privacy in mind and respects GDPR and CCPA principles.

FlipperHelper stores item records (photos, purchase price, SKU, market, seller, platform listings with dates, sale info), market locations with GPS coordinates, seller names, expense records (entry fees, transport expenses, other expenses), exchange rate history (365 days), and app settings. Everything is stored locally in a SQLite database on your iPhone.

FlipperHelper is built natively with Swift and SwiftUI following the MVVM architecture pattern. It uses SQLite via GRDB with WAL mode for concurrent reads and thread-safe data access through an actor-based DatabaseStore. Background photo sync uses Apple's background task continuation. The app requires iOS 17.0 or later.

FlipperHelper automatically generates a unique SKU for every item using Crockford Base32 encoding. These codes are short, human-readable, and avoid ambiguous characters (no O/0, I/1/L confusion). SKUs are time-based with an atomic counter to guarantee uniqueness. An example SKU looks like FH-20D6G0NR. You never need to create SKUs manually.

FlipperHelper sends optional local push notifications as listing reminders, reminding you to list unlisted items on selling platforms. You can configure which days of the week and what time reminders appear in Settings. These are local notifications processed entirely on your device with no server involved.

Yes. FlipperHelper has a search function that lets you find items by name or SKU code. This works across all item statuses — new, listed, and sold — so you can quickly locate any item in your inventory regardless of where it is in the lifecycle.

Private Sale is a listing platform option for items you sell directly to someone — at a market stall, to a friend, or through any channel that isn't a formal online marketplace. Since FlipperHelper tracks the full item lifecycle from purchase through listing to sale, Private Sale lets you mark items as listed and sold without needing an online platform. This is useful for resellers who also sell in person at car boot sales or to people they know.

Yes. FlipperHelper generates visual share cards for several types of content:

• Sold items — individual cards showing the item photo, profit, and time to sell
• Top Flips — your most profitable sales for a period
• Daily purchases — items bought on a specific day at a market
• Full stock — your entire unsold inventory (up to 50 items)

These cards can be shared directly to Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, Reddit, or any other app on your phone.

FlipperHelper is completely free with no subscription, while Vendoo offers a free tier with paid plans. FlipperHelper focuses on the full reselling lifecycle (buy, list, sell, profit) with expense tracking including entry fees and transport costs, while Vendoo focuses primarily on listing management automation. FlipperHelper works fully offline and is ideal for car boot sale and flea market resellers who source in person, while Vendoo targets high-volume online sellers who need automated cross-posting. Competitor pricing may change — check their websites for current plans.

Both FlipperHelper and Flippd are reseller apps, but FlipperHelper tracks listings across 16 platforms compared to Flippd's more limited set. FlipperHelper includes multi-currency support with six currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, NZD) and automatic exchange rates, GPS-based market auto-detection, detailed expense tracking with entry fees and six transport types, and Google Drive photo sync. FlipperHelper is completely free with no premium tier. Competitor features and pricing may change — check their website for current details.

List Perfectly focuses on automated cross-posting, actually publishing your listings across platforms, while FlipperHelper focuses on tracking inventory and calculating profit. FlipperHelper is free; List Perfectly offers paid plans. If you need to track what you bought, where you bought it, what you paid, and calculate your real profit after all expenses, FlipperHelper is the better fit. If you need automated cross-posting, List Perfectly serves a different purpose. Check their website for current pricing.

FlipperHelper replaces manual spreadsheets with a purpose-built mobile app you can use at the car boot sale. You get photo capture, instant profit calculation, multi-platform listing tracking with per-platform dates, GPS market auto-detection, categorised expense tracking, automatic SKU generation, multi-currency conversion with daily exchange rates, and one-tap Google Sheets export. No laptop needed, no formula errors, no forgotten columns.

Download FlipperHelper for free from the App Store (requires iOS 17.0 or later), then complete the 8-page onboarding walkthrough. The onboarding introduces key features: item tracking, listing management, multi-currency support, market management, expense tracking, and Google Drive export. After the walkthrough, you can configure your preferences in Settings and tap the plus button to add your first item.

Yes — FlipperHelper is on Google Play as a full native Android app with feature parity with the iPhone app: the same inventory tracking, expense logging, multi-currency profit calculation, and Google Sheets export. It's also on the App Store for iOS 17 and later. Both are free.

Because both apps share the same backup format, you can move your data between iPhone and Android at any time without losing anything.

FlipperHelper tracks two payment methods: Cash and Card. When recording a sale, the app auto-suggests the appropriate payment method based on the platform. Physical and local platforms like Car Boot and Sold Offline default to Cash, while online platforms like eBay, Vinted, and Depop default to Card. You can change the payment method for any sale.

For support, email andreevichprudnikov@gmail.com. You can also join the FlipperHelper community on Reddit at r/flipperhelper or follow on Instagram at @flipperhelper for tips, updates, and feature announcements.