Shipments

A shipment is what physically leaves the warehouse: one or more parcels going from one location to one destination, with one carrier and service type. Shipments are created by packing; you do not create them by hand. Shipping a shipment completes the outbound process: the inventory leaves the location and the orders are completed.

Find shipments under Shipments in the sidebar.

What a shipment contains

Part	Content
Shipment	State, account, carrier, service type, delivery terms, description, customer reference number, tracking number and return tracking number, ship at, export flag, and addresses: origin, destination, billing, and for exports importer and exporter.
Parcels	Each parcel has a container, description, physical packaging, weight and dimensions, SSCC, tracking number and return tracking number.
Parcel items	One per packed unit: product number and name, serial number, price, customs value, weight, dimensions, HS code, ECCN, UN number and country of origin. These are used for carrier data and customs documents.

A shipment is an export when origin and destination are in different countries, unless both are in the EU. For export shipments the importer and exporter contacts are filled in when packing, from the customer's contacts or from the product account's contacts (for example a contact of kind "Importer_us" for the United States).

Shipment states

State	Meaning
Pending	Created by packing; parcels can still be added.
Hold	Blocked; cannot be shipped until released.
Labelling	A label is being requested from the carrier.
Labelled	The carrier label has been received.
Shipping	Being shipped (short-lived).
Shipped	Shipped: the goods have left.
Delivered	Delivery has been registered.
Cancelled	Cancelled; only possible for an empty shipment, for example after unpacking everything.

Transitions:

• Pending → Hold → Pending: hold and release (see Shipment holds).
• Pending or Shipped → Labelling → Labelled: label request (see Labels and documents). If the request fails, the shipment returns to pending, or to shipped when everything has already been shipped.
• Pending or Labelled → Shipping → Shipped: Ship.
• Shipped or Labelled → Delivered: Deliver, only after the shipment has been shipped.
• Pending → Cancelled: when the shipment is empty.

The shipments overview

The overview shows the shipments of the current location. By default it shows shipments that still need attention, so it hides labelled, delivered and cancelled shipments; use the State filter to see those. Shipments are sorted by Ship at, earliest first, so the most urgent ones are on top.

Columns include Shipment number, Account, State, Carrier, Location, Service type, Parcels, Orders, Customer reference numbers, Mode (manual, or automatic when the label came from a carrier integration), Tracking number, Return tracking number, Created at and Ship at.

Two row actions are available:

• Create label: request a carrier label (pending or shipped shipments).
• Ship this shipment: ship it (pending or labelled shipments with items that are not yet shipped).

Both ask for confirmation.

The shipment page

The shipment page shows:

• the header with all shipment details, including the tracking number as a link to the carrier's track and trace page (when the carrier has a tracking URL), the latest carrier integration error if a label request failed, Export, Shipped at, Cancelled at and, after delivery, POD name and POD date;
• the addresses;
• Parcels and Parcel items tabs;
• the orders on the shipment;
• Other: Papers (labels and documents of the shipment and its parcels), Email notifications, Integration messages, Carrier waybill requests (the requests sent to and answers received from the carrier) and Tickets.

The menu contains Edit, Ship, Label, POD, Deliver and Anonymize, depending on the state and your role.

Editing a shipment

Admins and warehouse associates can edit a shipment until it is labelled or delivered. On the edit page you can change:

• Basics: delivery terms, carrier, service type (limited to the carrier's service types), description, tracking number, return tracking number, dimensional weight and unit, and expected at;
• one tab per address (origin, destination, billing, importer, exporter);
• the Parcels: description, physical packaging, weight, dimensions, tracking numbers and SSCC, and per parcel its items: product number and name, price and customs value with currency, weight, dimensions, HS code, country of origin, ECCN and UN number.

Correcting the shipment is typically needed when the carrier rejects a label request, for example because of an invalid postal code.

Shipping

To ship, choose Ship in the shipment menu, or the Ship this shipment row action. Shipping requires the role Admin, Warehouse associate or Shipper. It runs in the background; you get "Processed shipment ..." or an error.

Shipping is refused when:

• an order on the shipment may not be shipped partially (Partial shipping off) and is not completely packed;
• a parcel's container is on hold ("contains containers that are on hold");
• packed inventory has expired;
• a product's setup is not complete while Restrict transactions to setup complete applies.

What shipping does:

1. For sales orders and scrap orders: the order line items become shipped, the inventory items are retired (they have left the warehouse), order lines are completed when fully shipped, and the order is completed. The parcels' containers are retired.
2. For transfer orders: the parcels' containers are moved to the destination location and set in transit, and the inventory becomes expected there, ready to be received.
3. If the carrier has an integration and no label was created yet, a label is requested (see Labels and documents). If a label was already created at pack complete, the shipment ends in state labelled.

With Auto ship this happens automatically after the last pack.

Delivery and proof of delivery

When the carrier confirms delivery, register it on the shipment (role Admin, Warehouse associate or Shipper):

• Deliver marks a shipped shipment as delivered.
• POD opens a form for the proof of delivery: POD name (who signed, at most 25 characters) and POD date. Click Update POD to save and return to the shipment, or Continue to stay on the form.

When the setting Delivery info required is on, a shipment can only be delivered with a POD name and POD date, and they are mandatory once you start filling them in on a shipped shipment.

Shipment holds

A shipment on hold cannot be shipped or labelled. Shipments are put on hold automatically:

• Order on hold. When an order is put on hold, its shipments are held too. Releasing the order hold releases them. See Holds.
• Dangerous goods. When a parcel item has a UN number (a product classified as dangerous goods), the shipment is put on hold and a ticket "Manual hold for shipment ..." is created with the task Release manual hold. This makes sure someone checks the dangerous goods paperwork before the shipment leaves. An e-mail template for the event can notify the right people (see Messaging).

To release a held shipment, open the ticket under Tickets › Problems (also shown in the shipment's Tickets tab) and perform Release manual hold. The shipment returns to pending. See Problems.

Anonymizing

Shipments contain personal data in their addresses. A shipment can be anonymized when it is cancelled, delivered or can be delivered. Anonymize in the menu (role Admin or Warehouse associate) wipes the contact details. Boxture can also do this automatically after the period set in Shipment anonymize period. An anonymized shipment can no longer be delivered. See Anonymization.