Fake Brains Software
If your readers submit it, you can sell it online.
ClassifiedScout by Fake Brains is self-serve classified ad software that brings online classified ordering to every section your readers submit to - classifieds and marketplace listings, a local service directory, celebrations and obituaries, legal notices. They pick a category and a package, write the ad, upload photos from a phone, and pay. The order lands in AccountScout already paid, with the images attached. Built for community newspapers that sell more than one kind of listing.
Five revenue lines, one engine.
This is not only the autos-and-garage-sales page. Any section where a reader submits something and you charge for it runs through the same ordering, the same payment and the same AccountScout record - under your name for it, not ours.
Marketplace and listings
Autos, real estate, equipment, livestock. Custom fields show up as cards on the listing - price, mileage, acreage, bedrooms - so buyers scan and filter instead of reading paragraphs.
Service directory
Local trades, professionals and businesses in a directory readers browse by category. You set the categories, the packages and the rates; a directory listing is a classified with a longer run.
Celebrations, obituaries and weddings
Families submit the photo and the text themselves, from a phone, and pay at the point of order. Nobody calls the office at seven in the evening asking how to send a picture.
Legal and public notices
A firm uploads the PDF and the system pulls the text out of it, so the notice stays accurate from order through billing and affidavit.
Traditional classifieds
Jobs, rentals, garage sales, services, announcements - the section you already run, now placed and paid for without a phone call to the office.
See it working
A classified product with a section called Public Notices.
We run a working two-title publication set up the way a publisher would run it - four sections through ClassifiedScout and the Advertiser Portal behind its login. It is not a slide deck and it is not a mockup. We walk you through it on a call, including the parts a visitor would never get into, like the advertiser login and what your staff sees when an order lands.
- It is embedded, not linked away. ClassifiedScout sits inside the publication's own page, under its branding, its categories and its packages - or runs as a standalone page instead.
- The section name is yours. On that site the legal section is headed Public Notices and the classified section carries the paper's own name - labels are set per site, not hard-coded to the word classifieds.
- It works on a phone. Mobile-responsive out of the box, which matters because that is where a reader-placed ad usually starts.
Both sides of the counter.
The same order serves the person placing the ad and the person who has to bill it - which is the whole reason it is worth putting on your own site rather than renting a form.
For your readers
- Post it from the driveway. Photograph the truck, upload straight from the phone, done
- Pay at the point of order. Card or ACH, with surcharge compliance handled
- See it without waiting for Monday. The ad goes live as soon as it clears approval, not when the office opens
- Upgrade while they order. Packages and add-ons are offered during placement, not chased afterwards
For your staff
- Orders land in AccountScout instantly. No export, no import, no sync window
- Nothing goes live without you. Staff review and approve ads before they publish
- Take a phone order in the same system. One tool for every classified, however it arrives
- You set the rules. Categories, packages, rates and section names are all configured in AccountScout
- It arrives billable. The order is already on the account, so invoicing, statements and collections run from the same record
Stop exporting CSVs
The old way
- Classified orders arrive through a separate tool
- Orders export as CSV, without the images
- The images get handled by hand, somewhere else
- Nothing appears online until somebody finishes the import
With ClassifiedScout
- Readers place the order on your site, in your section
- The order and the payment land in AccountScout as they happen
- The images come with it, uploaded by the customer
- The ad is live once it clears approval, not once the import finishes
Pricing
No per-seat fees.
ClassifiedScout is an add-on to AccountScout, and AccountScout has no per-seat fees - putting classifieds online does not mean paying for every person who touches an order. We quote against your volume on a demo call.
FAQ
Common questions about online classified ordering.
See It In Action
Your readers are already online. Your classified counter should be too.
Bring us the way these orders reach you today - the form, the inbox, the phone, the spreadsheet - and we will show you what placing one directly on your site looks like.
Or call us at 303-791-3301