Sell consigned stock

A consignment sale uses the documents your sales team already knows: a sales quote, a sales order, a shipment and an invoice. The only new thing is the consignment purchasing code on the line, CONSIGN by default. It turns the line into a drop shipment of the vendor's stock: when you ship, Business Central buys the unit from the vendor and sells it to the customer in one step.

Before you start

• The vendor's stock is received at the location on the sales line. See Receive vendor stock.
• Consignment Setup has a Purchasing Code with Drop Shipment and Consignment selected. The assisted setup creates CONSIGN for you.
• The customer and the item are set up for sales as usual.

Step 1: Enter the sales line

1. Create a sales quote or a sales order and enter the item, Location Code and Quantity.
2. Choose the consignment purchasing code in the Purchasing Code column, which is shown on sales quote and sales order lines. Or use the notification: when you have no stock of your own at the location but vendors do, the app says so and offers Use consignment stock, which sets the code for you. Choose Don't show again if you do not want this notification; you can switch it on again in My Notifications.

When the code is set, the app:

• fills Consignment Vendor No. with the vendor that holds the oldest stock of the item at the location. Choose another vendor with the lookup, which lists only vendors that have stock;
• checks the vendor's available stock (see Commitment explained);
• shows the Consignment Stock FactBox for the line: the vendor's stock on hand, committed to other lines and available, and the totals of all vendors.

Step 2: Choose the stock

For serial- or lot-tracked items, decide which units you sell. You have three ways:

• Select Consignment Stock (recommended). See Select consignment stock.
• Item Tracking Lines on the line works as usual. Its serial and lot lookup lists only the consignment stock of the line's vendor.
• Automatic. With Auto-Assign Tracking set to FIFO or FEFO in Consignment Setup, the app assigns the oldest or the first-expiring stock when you release the order.

For untracked items you can skip this step. Enter a Consignment Bin Code only if the stock must come from one bin.

Select consignment stock

1. On the sales quote or order lines, choose Select Consignment Stock, next to Select Items in the lines' action bar.
2. The header shows the Item No., Quantity Needed (Base) and Quantity Chosen (Base). The lines show each available piece of stock: Vendor No., Serial No., Lot No., Package No., Bin Code, Available and Quantity to Assign, then On Hand and Committed. Expiration Date and Received Date are hidden; show them with Personalize when you pick by expiry or age.
3. Type the Quantity to Assign on the lines you want (the page is editable at once), or choose Assign Oldest Stock to fill the line from the oldest received stock. Clear Quantities starts again.
4. Choose OK. The line gets the item tracking and the Consignment Bin Code.

When you choose stock of two vendors, the line is split into one line per vendor, so each vendor gets its own purchase order line. This needs Split Lines by Vendor in Consignment Setup (on by default). The split line copies the item, variant, location, unit of measure, purchasing code, unit price, line discount and shipment date.

Step 3: Make the order from the quote

Choose Make Order on the quote as usual. The consignment fields, vendor and bin are copied, and the stock is checked again on the order.

Step 4: Release, and the purchase order is created

Choose Release. With Create Purchase Orders set to On Release (the default), the app:

1. assigns tracking automatically when Auto-Assign Tracking says so;
2. checks the vendor's stock and the chosen serials and lots;
3. creates one purchase order per consignment vendor, as a drop shipment: the ship-to address is the customer, the lines are linked to the sales lines and the tracking is copied. The purchase order has Consignment selected.

The purchase price follows the vendor's Settlement Method: Purchase Price keeps the normal purchase price from the vendor's price list or the item's last direct cost, and Percent of Sales Price pays the vendor a share of the sales line price after line discount, excluding VAT. See Settle with vendors.

With On Posting, the purchase orders are created when you post the shipment. With Manual, choose Create Consignment Purchase Orders on the Home tab yourself before you post. A notification tells you which purchase orders were created; choose Open Purchase Orders to see them.

The button shows only on orders with consignment lines. It is a split button: it shows its first available action, Create Consignment Purchase Orders while consignment lines are not on a purchase order yet, and Remove Consignment Purchase Lines once they all are. Choose the arrow next to the button for the other action.

Step 5: Ship

Choose Post and Ship (or Ship and Invoice) on the sales order. You can also post Receive on the purchase order. Business Central posts the drop-shipment pair, a purchase receipt and a sales shipment, and the app writes a Sale entry in the Consignment Ledger for each unit or lot. The entry records the customer, the sales order, the purchase order, the purchase receipt and the item ledger entries.

To see them, choose Consignment Ledger Entries on the sales order, the posted sales shipment, the posted purchase receipt or the posted sales invoice.

Invoice the customer as usual. The vendor is paid through the purchase order; see Settle with vendors.

Change an order that already has a purchase order

Drop-shipment rules block changes to sales lines that are linked to a purchase line. To change quantities, vendors or stock:

1. On the sales order, choose Reopen.
2. Choose Remove Consignment Purchase Lines on the Home tab (on the split button, or from the arrow next to Create Consignment Purchase Orders) and confirm. The consignment purchase lines that nothing has been received on are removed, and purchase orders left empty are deleted.
3. Change the sales lines.
4. Release the order again, or choose Create Consignment Purchase Orders.

Undo a shipment

Use Undo Shipment on the posted sales shipment lines as usual. The app writes a correcting Sale entry and the stock is open again in the vendor's consignment stock, with its serial, lot and bin.

Limits

• A line without a consignment vendor cannot get a purchase line. Choose the vendor first.
• A purchase order filled with the native Get Sales Order drop-shipment action takes only consignment lines of its own vendor.
• Production, assembly and project consumption of vendor stock is not supported: buy the stock out first with an ownership change.
• Credit memos and return orders created with Copy Document or Get Posted Document Lines to Reverse are not consignment lines. For customer returns see Returns.

What's next

Understand what blocks a sale: Commitment explained.