Best practice to remove consignment products from inventory

[shopmingei]

We are a museum store who has been using Square since April 2024, after using Quickbooks POS for many years (10+). 

We mostly purchase our inventory, but still work with a handful of artists on consignment terms. I've figured out workarounds for running sales reports (they aren't great compared to Quickbooks, but they work ok.)

I haven't been able to figure out if there is a "correct" way to return items to the consignor. When an artist brings us items on consignment, we receive them into inventory so they can be sold at the register and we can track the quantity. Some items we try for a few months and if they haven't sold, we return them to the artist, so we need to remove them from the inventory to set the quantity to zero to match what we truly have. 

Is there a good way to do this? Right now I go into each item and change the stock to zero and choose "inventory recount" as the reason. Quickbooks used to have something called a Return Voucher, which would allow you to easily remove multiple items from inventory at a time, and then print a handy report for yourself and the consignor (or vendor if you returned a purchased item). I'm hoping to find something similar. Right now the only "report" is that the item quantity being decreased shows in the overall inventory history (and for some reason there is no vendor listed here)

Any help is greatly appreciated!

[MayaP]

Hey @shopmingei, thanks for posting this inquiry. 

I am going to tag some super sellers who can hopefully share their insight. Thank you, @Stacelyn24 @TheRealChipA @keicollective @sugarlab! 

[Candlestore]

@shopmingei ;

 The issue is Square is a POS first and does not do alot for Accounting besides the actual sale of an Item.

QuickBooks was an Accounting Software 1st and added in the POS which included ways to deal with Return Voucher to a Vendor.

I think the way your doing things is fine for inside Square, but in your Accounting Software you would need something to show you returned said item to your Vendor.   Depending on your accounting software if your Stil using QuickBooks would be a Return Voucer in QuickBooks.  Square just tracks the Inventory you have on hand to sell and is not also a full blown Accounting package which you would also need.  The accounting package would keep track of expenses like Utilities and should have a way to return or accept a credit for Damaged items.

[Stacelyn24 · Accepted solution]

Hey there! I totally get why this has been a bit of a struggle—Square is great for general inventory management, but consignment tracking is definitely not its strong suit.

Since you need a way to return items to consignors while keeping records clean, you might want to check out some third-party apps that integrate with Square and are built specifically for consignment businesses:

1. Rose for Square – This one is a solid choice for managing consignment inventory. It tracks consignor sales, helps with payouts, and makes it easier to keep everything organized.
2. Ricochet Consignment – Another great option that works with Square. It has built-in tools for tracking consignors, handling inventory, and even printing reports.
3. ConsignCloud – This one lets you manage consignment inventory while still using Square for checkout. It helps with tracking and reporting, which could replace the return voucher system you had in QuickBooks.
4. Circle-Hand – It’s a newer option and doesn’t fully integrate with Square yet, but a lot of stores use it alongside Square for consignment tracking. Might be worth keeping an eye on!

If you’re looking for a simple, built-in way in Square, manually adjusting stock (like you’ve been doing) is probably the best workaround for now. But if you want something more automated with reporting features, one of these apps could save you a lot of time. Hope this helps! Let me know if you check any of these out. 😊

[MayaP]

Thank you so much for your insights, @Stacelyn24  and @Candlestore! I truly appreciate your support.

I hope this provided helpful guidance on managing inventory and consignment items @shopmingei. If you ever need further assistance, don’t hesitate to reach out!

[Effrontés]

I wish SQUARE would have a system for consignment.  It would make my life simpler.

What I have been doing to remove items from inventory when returning goods to the suppliers is :

- I have created a client called RETURN

- I scan all items as a sale but I manually adjust the price to 0$

- I process the payment as cash 

- I print two receipts:  1 for the supplier and 1 for my records

That make my inventory accurate an leave a trace in my reports for the returns.  It's not ideal, but it's the best way I found so far. 

[TheRealChipA]

@Effrontés Like all businesses, including yours, Square has to make hard choices that benefit enough of its user base to make the cost of building out a new feature worthwhile. Consignment sellers are a relatively new part of the equation, so not too large right now in the Square ecosystem.

This means, as @Stacelyn24 and @Candlestore have rightly pointed out, the third-party solutions that focus on consignments are often the best solution. Square will do so in the future if it makes sense for them as a business that sees consignments ramping up.

As you are aware in your own business, you can’t be everything to everyone. You have to do you first. Square has to make similar decisions and, unlike most of us, they answer to stockholders and a Board of Directors.  That’s the beauty of the Square App Marketplace. At least we have options.