The Consignments form is used to calculate, modify, and print reports for each Vendor's consignment through a given date. If your gallery has Vendors on consignments, this is the one feature which will save you the most time and paperwork at the end of the payment period!
This is a very powerful feature which may take some time to work through the first time. However, once you have set up your system one time, you will find that paying Vendors becomes very simple when using these reports.
Although you can make manual adjustments, this is intended to be a completely automated process.
Paying consignments is a three step process:
Generate Consignments
Review/Modify/Print Consignments
Record Payments
In the first step, Masterpiece determines how much consignment to pay each Vendor.
Each time you press the Generate button, Masterpiece will re-calculate consignments for sales you have made up to the "Through" date. You can press the Generate button as many times as you wish before using the "Record Payments" step.
If you select a particular vendor, consignments will only be generated for that vendor.
There are four options for determining how your company pays consignments. Use the Company Settings form, which is under the tools menu, to set the method for your company.
(IMMEDIATELY) Artist/Supplier is paid immediately: The full amount of the consignment is paid to the vendor as soon as the piece is sold (and any part of the payment is received from the client) even if the consignment amount is more than the deposit paid by the client.
(BEFORE) Artist/Supplier is paid before gallery: When a client makes a partial payment (as with a Layaway) the system will apply any partial payments first to the Vendor, then to the gallery. In this way, the Vendor is paid in full before the gallery receives any money, but the Vendor is not paid more than the gallery has received.
(PERCENTAGE) Artist/Supplier is paid percentage of payment: Pay consignments in the same percentages as the payments made by the client. If the client were to pay 25% of the total amount due on the transaction, the gallery would pay 25% of the Consignment Due.
(FINAL) Artist/Supplier is paid after final payment: Pay the full consignment after the client has made the final payment.
Clear Consignments Button: As you work with consignments, the system generates a table (database) that tracks the consignments due to vendors. You can clear this table completely by selecting the Clear Consignments button. When you do this, you will have to repeat the Generate step to make the system recalculate all outstanding consignments.
How Generate Consignments Works:
The following text explains the generate process in detail. Skip to Step 2 if you are not interested how consignments are generated.
In broad terms, the system calculates the total Consignment Due for each piece in the system and then subtracts out any payments already made for the items.
First Masterpiece pulls up the sales figures, including sales price and art cost, on consigned Items that have been sold through the Through date.
If the calculation type is FINAL then only sales that are Paid In Full are included. For other calculation types all sales with any type of actual payment are pulled. For multi-vendor Items the Item cost and price figures are split between the vendors, prorated according to their Owner Percentage (see the Purchase Orders help topic for more information on multi-vendor purchases).
Next Masterpiece figures the Gross Consignment Due:
NOTE: the Consignment Due should NEVER be more than the Art Cost.
For FINAL or IMMEDIATELY, the Consignment Due amount is simply the Art Cost less any previous payments.
For PERCENTAGE, the Consignment Due is the Art Cost times the ratio of the Total Paid through the Through Date divided by the Sales Total (Art Cost * Total Paid / Sales Total).
Example: Suppose you have a piece where the art cost (consignment) is $450 and the retail price is $900. You sell the piece for $900 and charge $100 for shipping so the total due from the client is $1000.
Now suppose the client makes a payment of $600. The payment ratio would be $600/$1000 or 60%.
Since the artcost is $450, the Consignment Due would be 60% of $450, or $270.
When the client pays the balance of the amount outstanding ($400) we would pay the balance of the consignment ($180)
For BEFORE GALLERY, the Consignment Due is the total Amount Paid (receipts) through the Through Date times the ratio of the Item Total Price divided by the Sales Total (Total Paid * Total Item Price / Sales Total).
Example: Suppose you have a piece where the art cost (consignment) is $450 and the retail price is $900. You sell the piece for $900 and charge $100 for shipping so the total due from the client is $1000.
Now suppose the client makes a payment of $250 or 25%.
Since the Art Cost is more than the amount paid ($450) we pay the entire amount ($250) to the artist.
If the client makes another 25% payment on the sale ($250), we would have received a total of $500 up to that point. Our second consignment payment to the artist would be $200 (The total consignment due - amount already paid or $450 - $250) and we would then keep the remaining $50. When the final payments are received from the client, we would not need to generate any additional consignments, because the vendor has already been fully paid.
In each case, the amount paid the vendor takes into account any previous payments to the vendor. The Payments include any type of Payment from the Transaction forms' Payments page as well as any adjustments such as Vendor Discounts or reversing of Vendor Discounts.
A final twist on the Consignment Due calculation has to do with multiple vendors. Please refer to Purchases for information on setting up Items with multiple vendors. As mentioned above, Masterpiece applies the Vendor's Owner Pct to the Gross Consignment Due and the Art Cost when the sales are first tallied.
For PERCENTAGE calculations the system is using the already prorated Art Cost/Consignment Due and multiplies it by the Receipts/Sales Total ratio. For BEFORE GALLERY the vendor's prorate is already figured into the Item Total Price, so the final figure is prorated properly.
Additional Notes:
Consignment are not calculated on owned items (seems obvious)
Consignments are based on the Artcost in the system. If the piece has been discounted, and the vendor is supposed to be paid less, the Artcost must be adjusted before generating consignments. If you use Masterpiece to adjust the Artcost from the Transaction screen, this will be done automatically. Otherwise, you will need to manually adjust the artcost before generating.
After generating consignments, there are many reports that can be created. You can also review and manually override the generated consignment amounts. You can print any number of reports, and make any number of modifications, before continuing to Step 3 below.
Warning: If you make manual adjustments to the ConsDue or Check # fields for ConsDue payment records, DO NOT press the Generate Consignments button again when you enter this screen. Each time you press Generate, any manual adjustments are reset to the original values determined by the system!
Review the generated consignments by printing whatever combination of reports you wish (as many different reports as you wish.)
When you enter the screen, the system is ready to print a report of all the consignments generated. There are also several options you can select to print different reports:
To print a report for just one vendor, select the vendor from the drop-down Vendor box.
If you select the Include Zero ConsDue Amt box, the listing will show all items sold for the month for the vendor, even if no consignment is due.
The Separate Page check box will cause the system to start a new page for each vendor. This would be the report that you send to the vendor along with their check.
This is actually how we got started in this business. When we owned our own gallery, we would regularly send this report to the vendors with their checks. One of our artists took their report to another gallery where they were being shown and requested the same report from them. That gallery came to use and asked if they could buy the software. One thing led to another and here we are!
The totals only box will cause the system to print listing of the consignments due for the period, summed up per Vendor.
When you select the Modify button, a new screen will open that allows you to review the consignments that the system generated. Modifying Consignment Due here will push the amount due into the Future Due column. This is only to adjust what you wish to pay the consignor today, but does not eliminate or adjust the consignment due from the system (use the Purchase Order for the item to adjust actual costs and amounts due).
In this screen, you can Generate check numbers for the vendors, or manually change the Consignments Due.
By default, the system will generate one check per vendor. If you un-check the One check per Vendor box, the system will generate one check per item. If there was a misprinted check, you can erase the check number and ask the system to re-generate checks for only the blank lines. Issuing One Cheque Per Vendor sums up all of the payments, including over payments, into one check for you. You will see this sum on the Totals Only report, and in the Vendor Totals on the other listings. If you select the All Numbers option and Generate check numbers again, the system will re-generate all the check numbers.
Use the Start With spinner box to set the starting check number for printing checks.
The Clear Consignment Due button clears the check number and Consignment Due, starting with the Check Number you select in the From Check spinner box.
Some descriptions on the columns:
Vendor, Title, Edition Number, Transaction Date: pretty obvious
Art Cost: Total art cost for the item, before applying any multi-vendor prorate
Vend %: the Vendor's Owner Pct for this item. This will be 100% for single-vendor items.
Vend Cost: Prorated art cost for this vendor
Amt Pd Vend: Total already paid to this vendor through the Through Date
Future Due: Vend Cost minus Amt Pd Vend minus Cons Due
Cons Due: The Consignment Due the vendor NOW based on this generate. THIS IS THE AMOUNT YOU WILL BE PAYING FOR THIS PERIOD.
Check #:
NOTE: You can manually override Consignment Due payment records from the Purchases form's Payments page after pressing the Generate Consignments button. This is useful when you need to specific information relating to the item. For example, due to a data entry error, you might have to change a vendor, or change the percentage splits for multi-vendor items.
When satisfied that all of the information is correct, print reports for all Vendors on separate pages.
The Labels button tells Masterpiece to print labels for any names which were selected during the generate process.
The last step of the process involves saving (recording) the payments. When you record the payments, the Consignment Due is converted to payment records and the check number is stored.
Warning! Do not press the record button until you are satisfied that the correct consignment amounts have been generated, adjusted, printed, and paid. Once recorded, the only way to reverse the process is through manual adjustments, I.E, by going to the Purchase form, Payments page.
NOTE: The report layout is determined by the ConsignRep template. The ContactLab template is used to print the vendor labels. See the Modify Report Layout help topic for help with changing reports.