Consignment tracking software for galleries

How to Track Consignment Agreements with Artists

Consignment is how most galleries operate — you display and sell an artist's work, take a commission, and pay out the rest. It sounds simple until you're managing 40+ artists, hundreds of pieces, and a spreadsheet that hasn't been updated since March. Missed payments, lost paperwork, and commission disputes are some of the fastest ways a gallery damages artist relationships.

Here's how to actually track consignment properly — and where dedicated software beats spreadsheets.

What a Consignment Record Needs to Include

Every piece of consigned artwork should have a record covering:

• Artist details — name, contact info, payment method
• Artwork details — title, medium, dimensions, edition number if applicable
• Intake date — when the piece arrived at the gallery
• Agreed commission percentage — this can vary artist to artist, so never assume a flat rate across your roster
• Asking price and any approved discount range
• Consignment period — how long the gallery will display the piece before it's returned if unsold
• Sale status — available, on hold, sold, returned
• Payment status — paid, pending, overdue

Missing any one of these is usually what causes disputes later — especially commission percentage and consignment period, which are easy to forget once a piece has been on the wall for eight months.

Why Spreadsheets Break Down at Scale

Spreadsheets work fine for a handful of artists and pieces. They start failing once you have:

• Multiple staff members updating records, leading to version conflicts or overwritten data
• Artists with different commission rates, which spreadsheets don't flag automatically — it's easy to pay out the wrong split
• Long consignment periods, where nobody remembers to check which pieces are overdue for return
• Multiple locations, where inventory needs to be tracked as it moves between spaces

The real cost isn't the time spent maintaining the sheet — it's the payment errors and artist frustration when something falls through the cracks. Artists talk to each other, and a gallery with a reputation for slow or incorrect payouts struggles to attract new talent.

What to Look for in Consignment Tracking Software

If you're evaluating dedicated gallery software instead of a spreadsheet, prioritise:

• Per-artist commission settings — so you never have to manually calculate a split or risk applying the wrong rate
• Automatic payment reminders — flags when a sale has occurred and payout is due, and when a consignment period is expiring
• Artwork status tracking — a single source of truth for what's available, on hold, sold, or returned, viewable by any staff member
• Digital consignment agreements — generate and store signed agreements per artwork or per artist, so terms are never "somewhere in an email thread"
• Reporting — sales by artist, outstanding payments, inventory aging (how long pieces have been on the floor unsold)
• Multi-location support if you operate more than one gallery space

A Simple Consignment Tracking Template

If you're not ready to move off spreadsheets yet, at minimum structure your tracker with one row per artwork and these columns:

Sort by Consignment End Date regularly so nothing sits forgotten, and by Status to catch anything marked "sold" without a corresponding payout date.

When to Move from Spreadsheets to Software

Consider making the switch once you notice any of these:

• You've had a payment dispute with an artist in the last six months
• More than one staff member updates gallery records
• You represent more than 15–20 artists
• You're spending more than an hour a week manually reconciling sales and payouts

At that point, the time saved and errors avoided typically pay for the software cost many times over.

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