1. Bid sheets - we have runners who circle the winning bid in red, pull the bid sheet off the table, and also write the winning bid # and amount on a second sheet that stays on the table. That way, we have an individual sheet for each item which comes in handy when we sort things out in the cash out area (I think you were suggesting logging the winning bids on a list and taking that list to cash out. Read futher for why I like individual bid sheets better).
2. We don't use runners to deliver items, unless they won a very valuable item which we have pulled off the table (ex: jewelry). If your items are clearly labeled (we stick an item# label on every item), there should be no confusion over who gets what. At cash out, we give our bidders the bottom half of their winning bid sheets to act as claim tickets. If you want,your runners could just float, helping people find their items.
3. We've done a raffle like your chinese auction. We sell an admission ticket for our auction, so that ticket # becomes the bidder's # for silent auction. We used pre-printed carnival tickets for the raffle. People are supposed to write their names/phone on the stub before they put it in the ticket box for the item. I think we sold a strip of 20 tickets for $5.
Like JHB suggested, we have our runners stake out the hot items and monitor the sheet as the bidding is closed. We give our runners red pens. THey circle the last VALID bid and pull the sheet.
One very important suggestion: close your silent auction items in waves, not all at once. People come to an auction expecting to spend X dollars. If they get outbid on all their bidsheets, they leave spending $0 and feeling bad the organization didn't get any of their money. We close our silent items in 3 waves, about 20 minutes apart. That way, if a bidder gets closed out of an item in the first wave, they'll go increase their bids on items in wave 2 or 3. All items are open at the same time, but close at differenct times. This also builds excitement and increases your bids because people have another chance to bid higher. We balance the waves, with some desireable items in the first wave for bargain hunters, and some smaller items in the last wave for people who want to buy something, but don't have a lot to spend. We use three different color bid sheets - one for each wave, and group the wave items togetehr in the room.
Cash-Out - Always a challenge! Here's our best approach: as soon as the runner pulls the bid sheets, she goes and sorts them by bid # into a set of "in" trays on the cashier table. The cashiers who are sitting on the other side of the table pull the sheets out of the trays and sorts them by bid # (or name if you're using bidder names). This continues until all the bid sheets have been pulled. At that time, the cashiers staple together all the bid sheets for one bidder and totals the amount due on the top sheet. The set is refiled until the bidder comes to cash out. Our bid sheets are designed so the bottom is a claim check/confirmation of what they paid/receipt. The cashier cuts off all the bottoms, staples those together and gives them to the bidder. The top half, still stapled together is saved for post-auction analysis.
We also give each cashier a Cashier's Log form where s/he lists every cash out transaction by bidder (NOT by item #).
Have at least 4 cashiers. Provide good lighting, calculators, staplers, scissors, pencils, file box, cash box.
I've used this system 3-4 times and each time we find another way to improve. Cash out is definately the challenge of an auction evening.
Good luck!