Introduction - Shipments

A shipment is the record of a package leaving, and it is the document that finally takes the stock off your count.

Shipping a packed box, naming the carrier, and the moment the stock leaves your count.

Everything before it is preparation. The sales order reserved the units, the picklist pulled them and the package boxed them; the shipment is the point at which you no longer hold them.

The Shipments screen, subtitled Manage shipments for sales orders, purchase orders, and repairs, and its Shipment action. Columns read Shipment number, Date, Type, Source number, Customer/Vendor, Packages, Carrier, Tracking, Status and Cost. Every row is typed Sales against a sales order, names a UK customer such as Poole Bay Marine Works or Severn Valley Plant Hire, and carries a carrier from Tuffnells Two Day, Palletways Overnight, Evri Courier, DPD Next Day, Royal Mail Tracked, Parcelforce Express or Ironvale Own Fleet, with a status of Pending or In Transit. — One shipment per package. Carrier, tracking and status are what a customer asking where their order is actually wants.

The moment stock moves

Before the shipment

YesCounted in stock on hand
YesReserved against the order
NoAvailable to promise elsewhere
NoCost recognised

After the shipment

NoCounted in stock on hand
NoReserved against the order
NoAvailable to promise elsewhere
YesCost recognised

This is the most useful thing to know about the outbound chain. If your stock figure looks too high, the question is almost always which packages have not been shipped yet.

What a shipment carries

A shipment record showing its number and status, the package and source document it ships, the customer, the carrier and tracking number, and the dates, with an activity panel at the right recording the movement. — The shipment names the package rather than repeating its contents, so there is one record of what was in the box.

The packagewhat is inside: A shipment always ships a package, so the contents are already recorded rather than retyped.
The carrier and tracking numberwho has it: What you give the customer when they ask where it is. The carrier list is your own.
The statuswhere it has got to: Pending while it waits for collection, In Transit once it is with the carrier, and delivered when it lands.
The costwhat carriage cost you: Recorded per shipment, which is what makes carriage readable as a number rather than a monthly surprise.

Not only for sales

Like packages, shipments cover sales orders, purchase orders and repairs. The Type column says which, so goods going back to a vendor are shipped through the same document a customer order is.