A guide for consignment and resale shops
How to pay consignors from Shopify each month
Payout day is where a consignment shop either runs smoothly or loses an evening. This guide covers how to work out what each consignor is owed from your Shopify sales, what a payout sheet needs, how to pay by check, cash or store credit, and what to keep for year end. Everything up to the last part works with plain Shopify and a spreadsheet. The last part shows how Still Works Consignment does the same steps inside Shopify.
1. What a consignor is owed
A consignor is owed their share of what the customer actually paid for each item, not the tag price. If an item was marked down 20 percent, or sold with a discount code, the share comes from the lower amount. Sales tax and shipping are not part of the sale price and stay out of the share. Round each share to the cent, and let the store keep the rest, so the two always add up to the sale.
Then take away anything that reduces the balance: a refund on an item that came back, a fee your agreement charges, or a payout you already made. What is left is the balance owed today.
2. Getting the numbers out of plain Shopify
Shopify does not know an item belongs to a consignor unless you tell it. The simplest way is the product's Vendor field: put the consignor's number there when you list the item, for example "C-0142". Use the number, not the name, so two people called Linda never get mixed up.
- At your cutoff, go to Orders, filter to the dates since your last payout, and choose Export with the line items included. The file has the vendor, the price paid after discounts, and any refunds.
- Or, if your plan includes it, open Analytics, then Reports, and use the sales by product vendor report for the same dates. It totals net sales per vendor, which is per consignor if the vendor field holds their number.
- Multiply each consignor's net sales by their split. If splits differ by consignor, keep the split in a column next to their number so the sheet does the math.
Two things to watch. Refunds that happen after you pay someone belong in the next period, as a minus line. And items sold on Shopify POS land in the same orders, so one export covers the counter and the website.
3. The columns a payout sheet needs
If you keep this in a spreadsheet, one row per event is easier to trust than one row per consignor that you overwrite. A sheet that holds up looks like this:
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Date | The day the sale, refund or payout happened. |
| Consignor number | The number on their tags, so two people with the same name never mix. |
| What happened | Sold, refunded, payout, or correction. |
| Item and order | The tag or SKU and the order number, so any line can be checked later. |
| Amount | Plus for their share of a sale, minus for a refund or a payout. |
| How paid | For payouts only: check number, cash, or store credit. |
A consignor's balance is then the sum of their rows. Nothing gets typed over, so when someone asks how you got to their number, the answer is a filtered list.
4. On payout day
- Make sure every sale up to your cutoff is in, including in-store sales from the register.
- List everyone with a balance above your minimum, if your agreement has one.
- Pay each one, and add a payout row for each payment the same day, with the check number or "cash".
- Send each consignor a short note: what you paid, how, and what is still owed. That one email answers most of the calls you would get that week.
5. Paying in store credit
Many shops pay a little more when a consignor takes store credit instead of cash, because the money stays in the shop. If you do this, record the payout and the bonus as separate amounts. The payout comes off their balance; the bonus does not, because it was never owed. In plain Shopify, open the consignor's Customer page (make one with their email if they do not have one) and issue store credit there, so they can spend it at the counter or online.
6. What to keep for year end
Keep a total of what you paid each consignor during the calendar year, split by how you paid. Your accountant will ask for it, and some consignors may need a tax form depending on the amount. The rules change, so ask your accountant which consignors need one and keep the totals ready.
The same steps in Still Works Consignment
Still Works Consignment does the export, the split math and the sheet for you inside Shopify. Each item is linked to its consignor at intake, so there is no vendor field to fill in, and their share is credited the moment it sells, online or on Shopify POS, from what the customer actually paid. Refunds take the share back. The home screen shows the total owed and to how many consignors.
To pay someone, open their page, enter the amount and pick cash, check, store credit or other. Store credit is added to their Shopify customer account, with an optional percentage bonus you set once in Settings. The consignor gets a receipt email with what they were paid, what is still owed, and a link to their own page with their items, sales and payouts. At year end, Settings has a spreadsheet of what each consignor was paid in the year, by method, for your accountant.
If your consignor list is in a spreadsheet today, it comes over with a CSV import: names, contact details, splits, consignor numbers and balances owed, with a dry run before anything is saved. The app is free for up to 15 active consignors. It is on the Shopify App Store.
Related guides
Where to go from here
The Still Works Consignment page has the plain description of what the app does and does not do. If something here does not match what you see, email the studio and it gets fixed the same business day.