ConsignCloud uses Accounts to represent individuals and businesses that have a relationship with your store. Sometimes these relationships can be complicated and have many dimensions — for instance, a single person may purchase inventory, consign goods, and manage a retail account.
This overlap is not just additional complexity though — it's an opportunity for you to make more sales, get higher quality goods into your store, get better business data, and make your people happier all at the same time.
There are four basic kinds of Account in ConsignCloud:
Customer: a person who has purchased something from you. Customers are automatically added whenever you email a receipt at point of sale. ConsignCloud will assign the purchase based on email address; if it can't find an account with the email address you're using, it will create a new one.
Consignor: a supplier that you pay after a sale has completed, based on a percentage split. This corresponds with the Consignment inventory type.
Buy Outright: a supplier that you pay before a sale has been completed, for a fixed dollar amount. This corresponds with the Buy Outright inventory type. When entering or restocking Buy Outright items, the item's Cost field is automatically credited to the account based on quantity entered.
Retail: a supplier you pay before a sale has been completed, for a fixed dollar amount. This works exactly the same as Buy Outright, except the Cost of an item is not automatically credited to the account — it's up to you to remit payment for these items.
What "type" an account is depends on how that person has interacted with your store. If they've bought something, they'll be a customer. If they've consigned something, they'll be a consignor, and so on.
Account types are mostly useful for analysis. If you want to figure out how valuable an account is to your store, you will analyze a consignor differently than a wholesale retail supplier. For the most part, you won't need to worry about these categorizations and can let ConsignCloud do its thing.
There is one exception, however — during initial setup of an account, ConsignCloud will ask you about the default Inventory Type for the account. We use this setting to pre-fill the inventory type for any items you add to the account. This is just a convenience: if the account supplies multiple types of inventory, you can always change it for individual items as you add them.
Adding an Account
To add an account, click on "+ Account" in ConsignCloud's header. Most of this form is pretty straightforward, but there are a few items worth noting:
An account's Email will be used to send automatic notifications about their inventory and sales. If you are subscribed to our Consign Portal, this will also be used to log in to their portal account.
Inventory Type is separate from an account's type, explained in detail above. This field is just a setting used to pre-fill the inventory type for any items you add to the account. This is just a convenience: if the account supplies multiple types of inventory, you can always change it for individual items as you add them.
Default Split describes the default consignor share ConsignCloud will fill in for items. If items under an account will have multiple splits, enter the split that will probably be used more often. Item that have different splits can always be set during item entry.
Depending on your store policies and individual account agreements, you may wish to either return or donate consigned items after they've been in your inventory after a certain amount of time. Like other inherited features, set this to the most likely preference for this individual account. If you're entering an item with a different preference later, it can be changed during the item entry process.