Memo and Consignment Tracking for Jewelry Stores

How the industry moves goods

Memo and consignment are how the jewelry industry actually moves goods. A store borrows a piece from a vendor, shows it, sells it or returns it, and settles up. It's built on trust, paperwork, and tight clocks. And it's where most stores quietly lose money.

Memo vs consignment

With memo, a vendor lends you a specific piece for a set time, often 30, 60 or 90 days. You return the piece, or pay for it. Consignment is broader, and usually longer: the goods sit in your store, you sell them, and you remit. Either way, the goods aren't yours. They stay off your balance sheet until they sell.

Why stores lose money on memo

Stores lose money on memo in five ways: lost paperwork; aging blindness, when nobody runs the report and the 90 days blow past; and pieces sold without telling the vendor; memo goods mixed into your own stock, and returns that never close the memo.

What proper memo tracking looks like

Proper memo tracking looks like this: an owned, memo or consignment flag on every piece, with the vendor and their memo number, receive and due dates visible at the register, and aging by vendor, a sale that creates the vendor payable at memo cost, and a return that closes the memo with a signed slip, and every status change logged.

Why it matters at year end

At year end, memo and consignment goods are not yours, so they don't belong on your balance sheet. Counting them inflates your assets and your insurance premiums, and creates a tax mismatch when the auditor checks. So keep memo and owned stock in separate columns in every report.

Memo reports owners actually use

And these are the memo reports owners actually use: open memo by vendor, oldest first, and the conversion rate: how much memo sells, and how much goes back, what's coming due this week, each vendor's profitability over a year, and pieces on memo that weren't found at the last audit.

Memo and consignment in WJewel

In WJewel, inventory search can show the pieces you own, or the pieces on memo with you. Goods you receive on consignment are tracked too. Print a report of the consignment goods you sold, to send to the vendor, handle guaranteed consignment buys, and consignment returns.

Contact us

You'll find the full guide on the WJewel blog. WJewel is fully web-based, and runs on PCs, Macs, tablets and phones. To learn more, visit www.wjewel.com, or call us at (646) 578-8300.