Overview

ShipCenter is a desktop shipping app that works hand-in-hand with the sales fulfillment workflows in SalesPad and Inventory Manager.  Once sales documents are ready to ship in SalesPad, they can be packed in ShipCenter, and shipments that were created in Inventory Manager can be finalized with the shipping carrier in just a few clicks.  ShipCenter communicates with FedEx, UPS, USPS via Stamps.com, and other popular parcel and LTL carriers to finalize shipments and print shipping labels.  Shipment details, freight, and tracking automatically write back to the order for easy future visibility.

Shipment Monitor

Process Shipments

The Shipment Monitor screen is used to view shipping source documents and generate shipments for them.

Supported source document types include:

• Sales documents

• Consolidated shipments

• In-transit transfers (extended module)

To enable the ability to generate and edit shipments, open the Security Editor and make sure the Can Generate Shipments and Can Edit Shipments sub-securities are enabled for the Shipment Monitor Source Documents screen.

The left panel lists all configured shipping sources and how many documents from each source are ready to be shipped, while the right panel lists all documents for the currently selected shipping source.

Double-clicking a source document or clicking the New Shipment button will load the Shipment Editor with all of that document’s information, including Ship To Address, default Shipping Method information (if the Shipping Method is set), and line items to be shipped.

Below the source documents grid, the shipment grid displays all shipments for the currently selected source document.  Right-clicking a shipment shows a Compare Rates option, which will open the Rate Comparison screen.

Bulk Process Shipments

The Bulk Ship functionality allows you to process shipments for many source documents at once.  This requires that the shipments on those documents are already created, e.g. from SalesPad or Inventory Manager, and they just need to be submitted to the carrier and print shipping labels.

To enable bulk ship functionality, open the Security Editor and make sure the Can Bulk Process Shipments sub-security is enabled for the Shipment Monitor Source Documents screen.

On the Shipment Monitor screen, hold down the CTRL or SHIFT key to select multiple sales documents, then click the Bulk Ship button to process them together.

ShipCenter will automatically create and process shipments for the selected sales documents. This operation may take some time to complete.  At the end, a window will display the results for each shipment.  If any required shipment information was missing or any carrier issues were encountered, this will be displayed so the user can make corrections and try again.

Rate Comparison

The Rate Comparison screen is accessible either by right-clicking a shipment on the Shipments screen or by clicking the Get Rate Quote button on the Shipment Editor.  This screen attempts to access all carriers in a particular category and get a rate quote for all possible service types.

Once finished, double-clicking any shipment option at the bottom will do one of two things:

1. If starting from the Shipment Editor, double-clicking a shipment option will populate the given shipment with that carrier's information and quoted rate.

2. If starting from Shipments, double-clicking a shipment option will start a new shipment with all the properties of the previously selected shipment, including shipment lines.

Shipment Editor

The Shipment Editor is the primary application screen for ShipCenter operations. From the Shipment Editor screen, an end user can get a rate for a shipment, generate labels for a shipment, generate return labels for a shipment, and void a shipment.

Selecting a Carrier from the Carrier ID dropdown in the top left will populate the Shipment Type and Shipment Service with their default values.

The Write Back Rate dropdown is set during Carrier Setup. It can be adjusted during a shipment to specify which rate - Account or List - should be written back to the Shipment Amount.

The Write Rate to Source checkbox changes how a source document is updated if the shipment was started from a source document using the Shipment Monitor.

Once a Carrier ID and Shipment Type are specified, clicking either Shipment Options or Package Options will display a Shipment Type-specific list of options that are available for a shipment. These options are documented in carrier-specific documents available from SalesPad.

Clicking the blue portion of Ship To Address or the blue portion of Ship From Address will show the Address Editor. If a shipment is started from Shipment Monitor, then this should already be populated with the shipping destination from the source document.

Clicking the area below Package Type will pull up the Select Packaging window. This is populated with both carrier-specific packaging and any packaging templates defined in ShipCenter.

If the Shipment was started from the Shipment Monitor, then clicking the Items button near the bottom of the screen will show the Packing window. This screen allows you to generate packages by dragging lines from the left to the right, or by selecting lines on either side and clicking the button in the center of the window. Clicking OK will update the shipment.

Each shipment line is required to have its weight defined. If a carrier is specified, then either the LTL Freight Class or the Dimensions section needs to be filled out; otherwise, the Dimensions section alone needs to be completed.

Clicking on the blue amount underneath Shipment Amount will request a Rate Quote from the Carrier.

Clicking the Finish button will contact the carrier and either retrieve a final rate quote (if the carrier is a freight carrier) and write out the quoted rate, or request a shipment be created and generate a shipping label.

Shipments

The Shipments screen is used to view existing shipments and create new shipments without using a source document. Clicking the New Shipment or Edit Shipment button will launch the Shipment Editor.

Right-clicking on a shipment will show the Compare Rates option, which will open the Rate Comparison screen that can be used to generate new shipments.