Tracking consignment in a spreadsheet: template and limits
Updated October 4, 2026
The columns you need
Use one row per item and one sheet for all of them; filters do the rest. These columns cover everything a payout needs.
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| SKU | The item's code, the same as in Shopify, so sales can be matched to rows. |
| Consignor | Name or code. Keep one spelling, or their totals split in two. |
| Item | A short description. |
| Date in | When you took the item in. |
| Agreement ends | Date in plus your agreement length. |
| List price | The price on the tag today. |
| Sold on | The date the order was fulfilled, which your return window counts from. |
| Sold for | What the customer paid for this item after discounts, before tax and shipping. |
| Share | The consignor's percentage. |
| Owed | Sold for × Share. |
| Paid in | The payout this item was paid in. Blank until it's paid. |
Add a second sheet for payouts, with the date, consignor, amount, method and a payout number. What a consignor is owed is the sum of Owed on their sold rows with nothing in Paid in.
A monthly payout routine
- Export last month's orders from Shopify (Orders, then Export) and filter to consigned SKUs.
- For each line, fill in Sold on and Sold for. If the order had a discount, use the discounted price of that line, not the list price.
- Check refunds since the last payout. If a refunded item was already paid for, add a negative row for that consignor.
- Leave out sales still inside your return window, then total Owed per consignor for sold rows not yet paid.
- Pay each consignor, fill in Paid in, and add the payout to the payouts sheet.
- Send each consignor the list of items in their payout.
Where spreadsheets break
None of these is a problem once. Each becomes one as the shop grows:
- Order-level discounts. A 10% off code on a three-item order has to be spread across the lines by hand.
- Refunds after a payout. They're easy to miss, and then the shop absorbs the loss.
- Markdowns. Lowering prices as items age means repricing in Shopify and updating List price, item by item.
- Ended agreements. Nothing reminds you that an item's time is up.
- Copy errors. One wrong formula or pasted row and a payout is wrong, usually discovered by the consignor.
- Questions. Every call asking whether something sold means opening the sheet and filtering.
When to move to an app
Payouts that take hours, refunds you've had to absorb, consignors calling to check: those are the usual signs. An app inside Shopify does the matching for you, because it sees every order as it happens.
Moving from a spreadsheet to Consignment Hub keeps your history. Import consignors from a CSV with what you already owe each one as an opening balance, then link your Shopify products to them in bulk. It's free for up to 3 consignors.
Questions
Is there a free consignment spreadsheet template?
The columns above are the template. Copy them into Google Sheets or Excel as headers, add a payouts sheet, and filter by consignor when you pay.
How do I work out a consignor's share?
Multiply what the customer paid for the item, after discounts and before tax and shipping, by the consignor's share. An item listed at 50 that sold with 10 off, at a 40% share, earns the consignor 16.
Can I import my spreadsheet into Consignment Hub?
Your consignors, yes: import a CSV with each one's name, email, share and opening balance. Products don't need importing. They're already in Shopify, and you link them to consignors in bulk.