Consigned Inventory Management in NetSuite

TL;DR Opening

The new Consigned Inventory Management feature in NetSuite allows you to effectively track and manage vendor consigned items, ensuring accurate inventory levels and costs associated with these items. This enhancement simplifies inventory processes and improves inventory visibility within your organization.

What’s New in Consigned Inventory Management?

The recently added Consigned Inventory Management feature provides a method for tracking inventory levels and costs of items that are in the custody of your organization but owned by vendors. This includes not only regular inventory items but also any serialized or lot-numbered items you may purchase, receive, stock, or sell.

Key Features

• Vendor Consignment Tracking: Items are enabled with the Allow Vendor Consignment setting, allowing you to manage their inventory status accurately.
• Inventory Adjustments: Utilize adjustments, returns, and counts to maintain accurate inventory levels of consigned stock.
• Inventory Visibility: Easily monitor the movement of consigned items within or between locations, ensuring you keep adequate stock levels.
• Integration with Purchasing: The integration among procurement, sales, and fulfillment flows allows you to pay for consigned items only when they are sold, thereby optimizing cash flow.

How It Works

1. Setup: To enable this feature, it's crucial to activate the Allow Vendor Consignment setting in the item records.
2. Monitoring: Use the Consignment Purchases Workbook to monitor inventory levels and processes across purchasing and billing flows.
3. Reporting: Generate Consignment Consumption Reports to analyze the performance of consigned items over time.

Limitations

It's important to note that if you are using the Brazil Localization SuiteApp, you must consult your account manager to verify customization requirements before enabling this feature. Additionally, assembly item types are currently not supported in this management feature.

These enhancements aim to streamline operations by improving accuracy and efficiency in managing consigned inventory, ultimately supporting better decision-making and inventory practices.

Who This Affects

• Inventory Managers: Responsible for overseeing inventory flows and availability.
• Procurement Teams: They need to manage relationships with vendors effectively.
• Finance Departments: To better manage cash flow related to consignment payments.

Key Takeaways

• The Consigned Inventory Management feature allows tracking of vendor-owned items.
• Enables better inventory tracking and visibility, enhancing overall management.
• Optimizes cash flow by linking payments to sold items only.
• Important limitations exist for assembly items and specific regional applications.

Source: This article is based on Oracle's official NetSuite documentation.