Consignment Retailers

The process of consignment is when you provide a store with one or more of your products, and you don't collect on those products until they are sold. Consignment can be an effective way of reaching markets that might otherwise be closed to you, but it does require vigilance. You need to continually check up on the store and bill them when the items have been sold. AnyOrder can help track the placement, selling, and inventory of consigned items.

When you place one or more items on consignment at a store, make out an invoice to the store. In the Item Area on the Main Invoice Screen, enter the items and quantities that you are leaving at the store. For the sales code, use the "C" code instead of the usual "S" code. That indicates to AnyOrder that these are consigned items.

Sales codes are entered in the "S" column in the Item Area. The "S" sales code means regular sale. In this case, however, a "C" sales code has been used. That means this item has been placed on connsignment.

When you place goods on consignment with a vendor, those goods are not considered sold--nor are they considered an account receivable until the vendor notifies you they have been sold. When the "C" code is used, the customer is not charged. Rather the invoice serves as a memorandum that the customer has been entrusted with your products on a consignment basis.

When, at a later time, the vendor reports that the consignment products are sold, you would issue the vendor a new invoice. The new invoice would list the sold items using the "S" code (for regular sale) AND you would also check the CONSIGNMENT ITEM box on the Invoice Screen to indicate that items sold had been on consignment.

There's another sales code that is associated with consigned items. Let's say you left 10 products at a store (recorded on an invoice with a "C" code). After a few months, it becomes obvious that the store isn't going to sell all 10, so you stop in and take back 5 of them. An invoice is created and a "T" code assigned to the 5 products. The customer is not charged or credited. Rather the invoice serves as a memorandum that you have taken back products previously entrusted to the customer on a consignment basis. The "T" code also enables you to keep track of consignment inventory through inventory reports provided by the program.

The "T" mean "Take Back." Use it when you take back consigned inventory.

When you use this system, AnyOrder is able track consignment activity. In particular, running an inventory provides information on how many consigned items have been sold at consignment sites, the amount of consigned sales, and how much is left in consignment inventory. (Consignment inventory is actually a part of your inventory, but it is inventory stored at a different location.) Additionally, if you have a number of consignment locations, the Level VI program includes a special report ("Consignment Sales Activity Report") which provides detailed data on consignment activity at each individual store.