Consignment Stock Tracking Done Right

Short answer: Consignment stock needs to be tracked separately from owned inventory — by consignee, by location, and by status (held, sold, returned). Mixing it into a single stock pool creates inaccurate on-hand figures, incorrect cost-of-goods calculations, and unreliable consignment reconciliations.

Why Consignment Is Harder Than It Looks

In a standard sale, ownership transfers when the goods are invoiced. Consignment is different: you deliver stock to a retailer, distributor, or agent, but ownership stays with you until they sell it. The goods are out of your warehouse but still on your balance sheet.

This creates a tracking problem that most inventory systems aren't configured to handle:

• The goods aren't in your warehouse, so a physical count won't find them
• They're not sold, so they shouldn't appear as sales revenue
• They're still your asset, so they need to be in your inventory valuation
• When the consignee sells, you need to convert the consignment to a recognised sale — retroactively, based on their reporting

What Needs to Be Tracked

A proper consignment system maintains separate records for:

The holding account per consignee is the critical piece. Without it, you can't answer: "What is retailer X currently holding, and does it match their last stock count report?"

AutoCount and Consignment

AutoCount doesn't have a native consignment module. The standard approach — using consignment-out as a delivery order without invoice — works for basic tracking but loses detail as volume grows. You end up with a list of unmatched delivery orders and no clean way to reconcile what was sold versus what's still held.

A custom AutoCount integration can build the consignment layer properly: separate item ledger accounts for consignment holdings, automated consignment confirmation processing, and matching logic that connects sales reports from consignees back to the original delivery.

The Reconciliation Problem

At the end of each period, the consignee typically submits a sales report or a statement of account. You need to match that against your consignment holding records and invoice only for what was actually sold. Common errors at this stage:

• Invoicing for units the consignee says weren't sold yet
• Missing returns that the consignee shipped back but weren't received into the system
• Discrepancies in product codes between your system and the consignee's

Building a reconciliation workflow into the inventory warehouse system — rather than handling it in a spreadsheet — catches discrepancies at the time of reconciliation, not three months later during audit.

Consignment Inbound (You as the Consignee)

The reverse case — where a supplier places goods with you on consignment — requires the same discipline in reverse. You're holding stock that isn't yours, and you need to be able to report back to the supplier on what you've sold. The system logic is the same; the accounting direction is different.

FAQ

Can I use AutoCount to track consignment without a custom module?

You can approximate it using unbilled delivery orders and manual reconciliation, but it breaks down once you have more than a handful of consignees or regular returns. The manual overhead grows faster than the volume.

How is consignment stock valued in accounts?

Consignment stock you own but haven't sold is still an asset at cost. It should appear in your inventory valuation even though it's not in your warehouse. How it's recorded in AutoCount depends on whether you're using a consignment holding account or treating it as a standard location.

What happens in AutoCount when a consignee sells our stock?

The consignment sale confirmation triggers an invoice in AutoCount — dated at the time of sale, not the time of original delivery. This affects revenue recognition and cost-of-goods timing, which has implications for VAT and period reporting.

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