Consignment management for galleries that actually represent artists

What a consignment record actually contains

A consignment is not a status flag on a work. It is the agreement between the consignor (the artist, the estate, the collector, or another gallery) and the gallery, governing the works, the period, the territory, the split, the discount authority, the framing and shipping responsibilities, and the renewal terms. The works listed on the agreement inherit those rules.

When the consignment lives next to the Inventory record, the gallery can answer fast questions correctly: can we discount this? Can we sell into Asia? Did the agreement renew on the 1st? Without that record, the answer is "let me check with the director", which is the answer that loses sales.

The five questions every consignment has to answer

A consignment that cannot answer these five questions in five seconds is going to cause an argument later. Most disputes between galleries and artists trace back to one of them being unclear up front.

1. The split. Standard 50/50, or 60/40 favouring the artist on works above a price tier, or layered (50/50 on primary, 60/40 on secondary). Whatever it is, write it down at the work level, not the agreement level only.
2. The territory. Worldwide, or regional? Some artists are co-represented (e.g. a New York gallery for the Americas, a Berlin gallery for Europe). The system has to know which gallery can sell into which region, or both galleries pitch the same collector and the artist hears about it.
3. The discount authority. Up to what percentage can the gallery discount without consulting the artist? 10% is common, 15% on big buyers; above that, the artist signs off. The threshold is enforceable in the system, not optional.
4. The duration and renewal. A 12-month consignment with auto-renewal is different from a 12-month with explicit renegotiation. Write the renewal date in the system, not on the agreement PDF only, so the renewal conversation actually happens.
5. The settlement cadence. When does the artist get paid? On sale, monthly, quarterly? With what deductions (framing, shipping, photography)? The statement template is part of the agreement, not an afterthought.

Where Word docs and a Dropbox folder break

The classic consignment workflow is a Word doc agreement, signed PDF in Dropbox, the works added to the gallery's spreadsheet with a "consignor" column, and the split kept in the director's memory. This survives until the third consignment from the same artist with a different split, or the first time an associate accidentally offers a 25% discount on a work that was supposed to cap at 15%.

It also survives until the first artist statement request. Reconstructing six months of sales (gross, discount, split, deductions) from spreadsheets and Stripe exports for a single artist takes most galleries a full day. When the artist asks "where is the statement on Mary Smith?" on a Friday afternoon, the gallery either drops everything or admits the statement does not exist yet.

How Art.industries handles consignments

A consignment in Art.industries is a real record: consignor (linked to a Network contact), period, territory, default split, discount ceiling, deductions, settlement cadence, signed agreement attached. The works on the consignment inherit all of that, and exceptions (a different split for a specific work) override at the work level.

When an associate drafts an invoice with a discount above the ceiling, the system blocks the send and surfaces the consignor's approval workflow. When a sale closes, the consignor's statement updates automatically: gross, discount, deductions (with receipts attached for framing and shipping), net, and the consignor's share, in the consignment's currency.

Statements are generated on the cadence the agreement specifies. The artist can be invited (view-only) to a private statement portal showing only their works, sales, and balance, with the ability to download a PDF of any statement period. No spreadsheet emails, no end-of-month panic.

For multi-party splits (a co-representation deal, a 50/40/10 with an introducer), the consignment supports multiple recipients and the statement breaks the share down per recipient. Settlement payouts are recorded in the same record, and outstanding balances are visible at a glance.

Reservations and "is this work actually free?"

A reservation on a consigned work is the most common source of consignor friction. The artist sees the work in storage and assumes it is available; the gallery has it on hold for a collector at a fair next month; nobody told the artist. The fix is simple: reservations on consigned works are visible in the consignor's statement view by default, with the collector's identity redacted unless the agreement says otherwise.

Holds are timed, not indefinite. A 14-day hold on a consigned work expires automatically, and the gallery is notified before it expires so the conversation with the collector happens deliberately. This is the same hold model used in the private viewing rooms flow.

When consignment relationships end

Agreements end. Sometimes amicably (the artist signs with another gallery), sometimes not (a dispute over a sale). Either way, the gallery needs to produce a clean handover: every work on the consignment, sold or unsold, with the full sale history, deductions, and consignor balance.

In Art.industries, this is one report (consignment closeout) per consignor, generated as a PDF the artist's lawyer or new gallery can read. Works marked "returning to consignor" trigger custody events on the multi-location view so the registrar knows to physically pack them. Works that sold remain in the historical record; the artist's statement view goes read-only after the closeout.

Estates, foundations, and second-degree consignors

Not every consignor is a living artist. Estates of represented artists, family foundations, and other galleries (for secondary-market work) consign too, and each has different defaults. Estates often want quarterly statements with extra documentation; foundations may have specific reporting requirements; gallery-to-gallery consignments may include a "no further discount" clause.

The consignment record supports per-consignor templates so an estate consignment defaults to quarterly settlement with full provenance documentation, while a primary-artist consignment defaults to monthly with only a sales summary. The defaults are starting points; per-work overrides remain.