Internal orders, commodity codes, weights & prices

This guide explains what “internal order” means inside ParcelPilot, and where customs/commodity data comes from when booking shipments.

What “internal order” means

An internal order is simply the order record inside ParcelPilot.

• The internal identifier is ParcelPilot’s own order record number.
• This is the reference used behind the scenes when the system links records together or when support needs to trace a specific order.

Imported orders often also have external identifiers:

• Order number (the customer-facing order reference)
• Channel (the upstream ecommerce platform)
• External ID from the upstream platform

When someone asks for an “internal order ID”, they mean the ParcelPilot order record ID (not the upstream platform order ID).

Where commodity (HS) codes and origin country are stored

Commodity/customs data is stored on the Item (catalog product), not on the Order.

In Filament:

• Items → Edit item
  • Commodity code
  • Country of origin

HS code normalization

When ParcelPilot prepares customs information:

• non-digits are stripped
• the code must be at least 6 digits
• codes longer than 10 digits are truncated to 10

If the commodity code is missing or invalid, ParcelPilot leaves it blank.

Where weights come from

Weights come from the catalog item data.

• Shipment weight calculations use the weight saved on the item.
• Customs commodity line weights use:
  • the item's dedicated customs weight, if one has been entered
  • otherwise the item's main saved weight

For combined or adjusted shipment flows, ParcelPilot can also use a per-unit override weight when one has been supplied.

Where prices/values come from

For customs declarations, the system builds a commodities list and a consignment value.

Commodity line values

For each line, the unit value is taken from the order line (best effort):

• the line's ex-VAT unit price when available
• otherwise the line's saved unit price
• otherwise the general line price
• otherwise zero

Total line value is quantity multiplied by unit value.

Consignment value fallback

If the computed consignment value is zero, the system falls back to the order total fields when available.

Currency selection

Currency for customs information is chosen in this order:

1. A shipment-specific currency override, if one was provided
2. The currency saved on the order from the ecommerce platform
3. GBP as the fallback

When this data is passed to carriers

When creating shipments, ParcelPilot can attach customs information to the carrier booking request.

At a high level:

• A clean list of commodity lines is built from the order lines, or from the shipment's adjusted lines when multiple orders are being combined.
• The booking request may include:
  • the list of goods
  • the total declared value
  • the currency

Whether a carrier uses these fields depends on the integration and whether the shipment is international.

Merged orders and customs data

If you create a shipment for a merged group, the system will (by default) combine the lines from all orders in the group so the customs payload reflects the full contents of the shipment.

In practice, that means the customs details are based on the full combined shipment contents, not just the primary order.

Practical workflow

• If customs details are wrong or missing, update the Item:
  • set Commodity code and Country of origin
  • ensure the item has a correct weight
• If declared values are wrong, check the prices saved on the Order lines.

If you’re unsure whether a specific carrier will transmit HS/origin/value for a given shipment, check the shipment/carrier booking details for that integration (some carriers require more strict customs schemas than others).