Consignment breaks ordinary inventory maths, because the stock has left your building but has not been sold. It is still your asset, and it is still your risk.
Handing stock to a consignee is not a sale. No revenue, no cost of goods sold, no profit — the units simply move from "here" to "with them". Revenue is recognised when the consignee sells to the end customer.
Book it at hand-over and you report revenue you have not earned, on stock that might come back. Take it off your books entirely and your stock value is understated by everything currently out with people.
"Due now" can be negative, and that is the number people get wrong. A consignee who paid $800 up front and has sold $388 does not owe you $388 — you owe them $412 of product. Reporting that as revenue makes a month look good that is actually a liability.
Because it was never a sale, a return is not a refund. The units come back into your count at the cost they left with, and nothing touches revenue. If your system books hand-overs as sales, every return has to be undone as a refund instead, which pollutes both your revenue history and your margin.
In the app
Every figure on this page is something PepStock keeps without being asked — landed cost per batch, each purchase's own cost, what every reseller is holding, and the per-mg ranking at one kit and at ten.
