Consignments

A Consignment in Consignly represents a transactional movement of inventory between parties and locations under an organisation’s operations. It is a core object used to track the journey, status, metrics, charges, and activities associated with moving inventory into, out of, or directly between locations. Consignments record the business and logistics information needed to manage, charge for, and report on those movements.

Consignments drive warehouse operations and billing: inventory movements, inventory adjustments, freight and activity charge generation, dashboard reporting, and integrations with external systems or APIs.

⚠️ Date/Time Warning: All date and datetime fields in consignment responses (e.g., dateEntered, expectedDispatchDateTime, actualReceiveDateTime) are returned in warehouse-local time, not UTC, despite including a Z suffix. Only fields explicitly ending in Utc (e.g., createdDateTimeUtc) are true UTC. See Date and Time Formats for details.

Consignment Types

Type Value Direction Description
Inward 0 Into warehouse Receiving inventory into the warehouse
Outward 1 Out of warehouse Dispatching inventory from the warehouse
Point-to-Point 2 Direct transfer Bypasses warehouse storage, requires only description and metrics

Status Workflow by Type

Inward Consignments (Receiving):

Status Value Description
Draft 8 Initial creation
Pending 1 Submitted, awaiting processing
ReadyToReceive 4 Inward consignment ready for receiving
Complete 0 All operations finished
Closed 6 Finalized, charges locked for invoicing

Outward Consignments (Dispatching):

Status Value Description
Draft 8 Initial creation
Pending 1 Submitted, awaiting processing
ReadyToPick 2 Outward consignment ready for picking
ReadyToDispatch 3 Picked and ready for carrier collection
InTransit 7 Dispatched, in transit to destination
Complete 0 All operations finished
Closed 6 Finalized, charges locked for invoicing

Point-to-Point Consignments:

Status Value Description
Draft 8 Initial creation
Pending 1 Submitted, awaiting processing
InProgress 5 Point-to-Point consignment currently being processed
Complete 0 All operations finished
Closed 6 Finalized, charges locked for invoicing

Status Transition Rules

  • Locked States: Consignments in Void (-2) or Closed (6) status cannot be modified
  • Closing: Moving to Closed finalizes all charges for invoicing. Closed consignments can be re-opened with appropriate permissions.
  • Voiding: Use the void endpoint to cancel a consignment; voided consignments are preserved for audit purposes
  • Bi-directional Changes: Consignments in non-locked states (not Void or Closed) can move forwards or backwards through the workflow as needed

Metric Types

Consignments can have multiple metrics to describe the shipment:

Value Type Description
0 Weight KG Weight in kilograms
1 Volume M3 Volume in cubic meters
2 Quantity Item count
3 Unit Type Unit type count
4 Virtual Pallets Virtual pallet count
5 Virtual Pallet Part Thereof Partial virtual pallet
6 Items Individual items

Note on unitType: For metric types 0, 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6, the unitType field is always null. Only metric type 3 (UnitType) uses the unitType field to specify a custom unit (e.g., "CTN", "PLT", "EA").