One of the more complicated pieces of managing a resale store is juggling account balances. Accepting and selling inventory can trigger a lot of additional overhead. Buy outright stores juggle account balances for suppliers, and consignment stores owe consignors a cut of nearly every item they sell. In an average store, all of this work adds up to dozens of hours a month without the help of software.
How Balances Work
Every account has a balance, which can be found on the right side of their Account Detail screen just below the quick actions buttons. ConsignCloud automatically adjusts balances based off when an item sells, is returned, or when a manual balance adjustment is made to an account.
A consignor's balance is credited in two primary ways:
When a Consignment item sells, ConsignCloud looks at the Split Percentage assigned to the item and adds the right amount to the account balance based on the item's price and any surcharges or inclusive taxes.
When a Buy Outright item is entered into inventory, ConsignCloud credits its Cost Per Unit to the account (Note: Retail items don't affect the account balance at all).
An important distinction between these three categories is this in short. For Consignment Items, an account is credited when the item sells. For Buy outright Items, an account is credited as soon as the item is created and enters your store's inventory. For Retail Items, an account is never credited, because these items are store property, and ConsignCloud assumes you paid for them outside of our system (maybe you bought 30 belts from Walmart—but you don't need to settle up with them as one of your consignors or buy outright suppliers in ConsignCloud).
Understanding and Paying out an Individual Balance
On an account's individual page, you can click on the "Balance" entry to see the full "Balance History" for an account.
On the Balance History page you can see all positive and negative balance entries associated with this account. Most positive entries will be when a consignment item sells, or when a buy outright item is entered in the store's inventory. Whenever a consignor is paid out for their share of their sales, the "Balance Settlement" entry will show how much was paid out to the consignor in that payout.
Accounts may be settled one at a time from their detail page. To do that, just hit the Payout button, which can be found under the Quick Actions menu:
Clicking "Payout" will bring up the Payout screen. From here you can select the Payout Type, you can add any additional fees for the payout, and you can also select the Payout Period.
In this screen you will start by selecting the Payout Type (ConsignCloud will automatically have Cash and Check as options, and you can also add more options—like Bitcoin, Venmo, Zelle, and Paypal—in your Store Settings).
In the Fee field, you can add any payout fees or reductions you would like to deduct from the payout.
If you operate a Vendor Mall, or a store where you charge booth rental fees, you will likely want to use our Recurring Fees which you can add to an Account on the Account page (coming soon!)
If you pay out balances as of a certain date (if for example you cut checks on the 15th for all items sold in the previous month), select the Payout Period for the correct day, and the Total Amount will adjust automatically. This field defaults to today, so if you'd like to pay out the entire balance and bring the account to $0, just leave this field alone.
Lastly, you'll be given the option to generate a Payout Receipt for the settlement.
At the bottom of the screen you will find Payout Overview, detailing the amount to be paid out minus any fees you may have added.
When you click "Confirm" in the top right hand corner of your screen, the account is now settled, and if you clicked to generate a payout receipt, ConsignCloud will open a new window on your computer with a Payout Receipt as a PDF. This is formatted to be printed on a normal 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. (Example screenshot below).
Paying out Balances in Bulk
You can save time by settling balances in bulk. To pay out balances in bulk:
Go to the Accounts table.
Click on the "Outstanding Balances" tab (in the screenshot below) to isolate all balances with an outstanding balance greater than $0.00.
Click the blank box icon in the top row to select all accounts, and then click the "Payout Accounts" button in the bottom toolbar (both pictured in the screenshot below.
Paying out accounts in bulk is exactly like paying them out individually—you'll select the payout type, assess any fees, decide whether or not to generate a receipt, and you'll select the "Payout Period" if you don't want to zero-out all all balances.
How to Adjust Balances
Often times, you will want to manually add or subtract some money from an account's balance on a case-by-case basis.
Go to the Account page for the account you'd like to adjust.
Click on the Adjust Balance button in the Quick Actions menu.
From here, enter the amount of the adjustment (select the minus sign to subtract money from an account), and include a memo. The memo will be shown on the account's payout receipt the next time you settle the balance, so make sure the memo is something they'll understand.
Balance adjustments can be used for a variety of cases which ConsignCloud doesn't have built-in features for. They are most commonly to fix errors (like reimbursing for lost items) or special situations (like adding a one-time credit to a high performing account as a thank you!).
Editing Account Balance History
For now, you can't edit Balance Entries in Next-Gen—but you can login to ConsignClassic and follow the steps in this article to edit any Balance Entries there. Edited Balance Entries will sync back over to Next-Gen.