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Process Drop-Ship Orders

There are important questions to think about before you set up the Order Manager to drop ship items for you. The answers to these questions will determine the way you go about processing drop ship orders on a daily basis. These questions are:

 

 

The following procedures will get you started creating templates, adding suppliers and inventory, designating items as "drop ship", actually sending drop ship purchase orders, and lastly, entering tracking information into the Order Manager so that you can then email that information to your customers. As with anything in the Order Manager, there are multiple ways of doing things; remember that you can tweak these directions to suit your individual needs.

 

Email or Fax Drop-ship Orders Automatically

 

These directions apply to you if you drop-ship items to your customers and your suppliers are either individuals or fulfillment centers to which you can email or fax drop-ship orders automatically.

 

I) Create templates.

A) Fax or email templates (optional)

Email Template Editor

Faxing Purchase Orders via Microsoft Fax

Faxing Purchase Orders via WinFax

II) Add suppliers.

A) Select default templates (optional).

III) Add inventory.

A) Designate drop ship items.

IV) Import or manually enter orders.

V) Send drop ship purchase orders.

A) One or more individual suppliers

i) View Order Drop_Shipping_Tab screen/Drop Ships tab

ii) Batch mode

iii) Multi-Order Processor

iv) PO system

VI) Track orders.

A) View Orders screen/Drop Ships tab

B) PO system

VII) Enter actual ship date.

A) DropShipSetDate system parameter

B) Manually

i) View Orders screen/Drop Ships tab

ii) PO system

VIII) Import Tracking Numbers

A) Import .csv Tracking #’s

B) Import Tracking Numbers via ODBC Connection

IX) Email tracking information to customers.

A) Process Tracking Numbers

Submit Drop-ship Orders via Text File

 

These directions apply to you if you drop-ship items to your customers and your suppliers require order information to be sent via a text file.

 

I) Create text file templates.

A) .csv or tab-delimited templates are used to send text files to suppliers.

B) Header templates

i) Order Manager Versions 3.01 and above allow you to define a "header template" for each template. You can use any template you create as a header template. The program either inserts one row of column headings into your text file at the beginning (Once per File) or before each row or order record (For Each Order).

ii) If necessary, create one or more header templates by following the directions for creating Regular templates.

iii) To include a header in any subsequent templates that you create, click on the Header template drop down list and select the appropriate file.

C) Regular templates

i) Go to the Main Menu>Maintenance Menu>Shipping & Fulfillment tab>Fulfillment templates button.

ii) Click New. Enter a name for the template.

iii) Select a File Type, either .csv or tab-delimited.

iv) If necessary, click in the Include Field Names checkbox.

v) For If a Qty Ordered is more that one:, select output one line or output (Qty Ordered) lines.

vi) Select a Header template if necessary.

vii) For Insert header, select Once per file or For each Order.

viii) Select the fields to export and enter a label for each if you wish or click Set to Standard Fields to use the defaults.

ix) Add any custom fields you wish.

x) Click Save, Exit.

II) Add your suppliers and indicate the default text file template you wish to use to submit drop ship orders. Note: Each supplier can have its own template or they may share a template.

A) When you create a supplier record, select Text File Export for Drop Shipping.

B) Select the template you wish to use from the Text File drop down list.

C) In the Export File field, enter the full path of where you wish the text file to be saved when it is generated.

III) Add your inventory and designate which items are to be drop shipped.

A) When you create an item record, click in the Drop Ship checkbox on the Product Info tab.

IV) Import or manually enter orders.

V) Send drop ship purchase orders.

A) Using one of the methods below, generate the text file(s).

i) View Orders screen/Drop Ships tab

ii) Batch mode

iii) Multi-Order Processor

iv) PO system

B) Retrieve the file or files from the directory (file path) you specified in the supplier record.

C) Submit text file(s) electronically via each supplier’s preferred method, i.e. email, FTP, etc.

VI) Track orders.

A) View Orders screen/Drop Ships tab

B) PO system

VII) Enter actual ship date.

A) DropShipSetDate system parameter

B) Manually

i) View Orders screen/Drop Ships tab

ii) PO system

VIII) Import Tracking Numbers

A) Import .csv Tracking #’s

B) Import Tracking Numbers via ODBC Connection

IX) Email tracking information to customers.

A) Process Tracking Numbers

 

Drop Shipping vs. Fulfillment Centers

The text file template building function within the Order Manager is shared by the Drop Ship system and the Fulfillment system which is why you go to the Fulfillment templates button on the Maintenance Menu to create the drop ship text file templates. Be sure not to confuse drop shipping with fulfillment centers. The two methods differ as follows:

 

Drop Shipping

 

Fulfillment Centers

 

Created: 1/19/12

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