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Shipments — Create, Edit & Delete

This is the canonical guide for the current outbound shipment workflow.

For normal fulfilment, start from Orders and use Create shipment for one order or Create shipments for a same-client batch.

Older wording such as Mark as shipped (external), Mark as collected (external), or Complete Fulfilment should now be mapped to the current Create shipment workflow, the shipment correction workflow, or the admin-only Fulfilment Repair workflow described below.

Use this guide when the question is:

  • How do I create a shipment?
  • How do I ship an order?
  • How do I arrange customer collection?
  • What is External fulfilment?
  • What is the difference between External courier and External fulfilment?
  • How do I mark an order as shipped externally?

Normal outbound workflow

Single order

  1. Open the order in Orders.
  2. Use Create shipment.
  3. Review the Shipment method.
  4. If you are using a Parcel Pilot carrier, review the carrier fields, suggested weight, and suggested dimensions.
  5. If only part of the order can safely leave now, use Ship available items (Partial shipment).
  6. Create the shipment.

If the order already has shipmentless fulfilment committed but is still missing Shipment evidence, the same modal can instead open in a later evidence-attachment mode.

In that mode Parcel Pilot:

  • creates Shipment evidence only for the exact missing shipment-evidence quantity
  • does not perform a second stock deduction
  • reuses the original fulfilment-event serial, inventory-unit, and bundle snapshot identity rather than substituting current stock arbitrarily

Bulk orders

Use Create shipments from the Orders list when the selected orders all belong to the same client and tenant.

Bulk creation is intended for clean, full-shipment cases:

  • the batch must be one client and one tenant
  • weight and dimensions are computed per order
  • per-order manual weight and dimension overrides are not available in bulk
  • if an order needs a partial shipment, an additional shipment, or manual review, handle that order through the single-order Create shipment flow

Shipment method

The Shipment method selector is the main decision point in the current workflow.

Parcel Pilot carrier

Use this when ParcelPilot is booking or creating the shipment through a configured carrier account.

What it does:

  • creates Shipment evidence
  • deducts Parcel Pilot stock for the shipped quantity
  • clears reservations for the shipped quantity
  • supports the carrier-booking fields, label generation, routing suggestions, and tracking push workflow

Customer collection

Use this when the customer collects directly from the Parcel Pilot warehouse.

What it does:

  • creates Shipment evidence
  • records that the goods physically left Parcel Pilot
  • deducts Parcel Pilot stock for the shipped quantity
  • clears reservations for the shipped quantity
  • can store a Collection reference when you are working on exactly one order

External courier

Use this when the goods leave the Parcel Pilot warehouse via a courier arranged outside Parcel Pilot.

What it does:

  • creates Shipment evidence
  • records that the goods physically left Parcel Pilot
  • deducts Parcel Pilot stock for the shipped quantity
  • clears reservations for the shipped quantity
  • can store Tracking number, External carrier, and External service details

Use this when the client supplied the label or chose the courier, but the goods still physically left the Parcel Pilot warehouse.

External fulfilment

Use this only when the order was fulfilled outside Parcel Pilot and Parcel Pilot warehouse stock should not be reduced.

What it does:

  • creates Shipment evidence
  • releases the Parcel Pilot reservations represented by that shipment
  • does not deduct Parcel Pilot warehouse stock
  • can store Tracking number, External fulfiller, and External fulfilment reference details

Important:

  • External fulfilment is not the normal warehouse-shipping path
  • it only appears when the order has outstanding Parcel Pilot reservations that can be released
  • use it when the physical fulfilment happened elsewhere and you still need the order history to show shipment evidence

Do not use External fulfilment for a client-supplied label collected from Parcel Pilot stock. That case is still a Parcel Pilot warehouse dispatch and should usually use External courier or Customer collection.

Partial shipments and remaining quantities

If the full order cannot ship safely now, ParcelPilot can show Ship available items (Partial shipment) in the single-order Create shipment modal.

Use that when:

  • only some of the required stock is currently pickable
  • the order already has an earlier shipment and still has outstanding quantity remaining

What it does:

  • creates shipment lines only for the quantity leaving now
  • deducts or releases only the quantity represented by the shipment method you chose
  • leaves the remaining quantity outstanding for later action

When Parcel Pilot already has a shipmentless fulfilment commit for the order, Create shipment can also open in a later evidence-attachment mode. In that case it creates Shipment evidence only for the exact missing shipment-evidence quantity and does not perform a second stock deduction.

If the order has both:

  • missing historical Shipment evidence from an earlier shipmentless fulfilment commit, and
  • genuine outstanding quantity that has never been fulfilled

the modal requires an explicit choice. Choose either:

  • Attach later shipment evidence for the historical missing-evidence quantity only, or
  • Create outstanding shipment for the quantity that still needs warehouse fulfilment now

Parcel Pilot will not guess between those two meanings automatically.

If later evidence attachment cannot be matched safely because historical serial, inventory-unit, or allocation references are incomplete, automatic attachment stops and the order requires admin review.

If the remaining quantity will never ship, do not create a dummy shipment. Use Cancel Remaining on the order instead.

Weight, dimensions, and packaging

For carrier-booked shipment methods, ParcelPilot suggests weight and dimensions from the order items.

Current behavior:

  • Auto-calculate from items can calculate the parcel weight from the order lines
  • Add box weight can add the configured Box weight (grams) on top
  • dimensions can be edited manually
  • if configured, a Box preset can be used as a packaging shortcut

Use the single-order Create shipment flow when you need to override those values for a specific order.

Status and channel consequences

Current workflow notes:

  • Create shipment is the operational fulfilment step
  • changing order status alone does not create shipment evidence or deduct stock
  • when an operator tries to set a fulfilment-implying order status directly, Parcel Pilot now opens a guided fulfilment modal instead of silently accepting the status change
  • non-carrier shipment methods can set the order status to Despatched as part of the shipment workflow
  • later tracking changes can move the order into In transit, Out for delivery, or Complete
  • shipment tracking can be pushed back to the ecommerce platform when the integration is configured for shipment confirmations

Corrections and exceptions

Cancel Before Dispatch

Use Cancel Before Dispatch on a shipment when the shipment should never have proceeded to dispatch.

What it does:

  • preserves the shipment row for audit
  • marks the shipment as cancelled before dispatch
  • does not deduct or restore stock
  • does not change fulfilment, accounting, or channel state

Reverse Dispatch

Use Reverse Dispatch when a shipment already committed stock and that dispatch now needs to be unwound.

What it does:

  • preserves the shipment row for audit history
  • restores stock through compensating inventory adjustments
  • recalculates reservations, fulfilment state, and the order's supported status outcome
  • blocks a second reversal of the same shipment

Use Correcting a dispatched order for the full operator process, including what Reverse Dispatch does not change and what to do next if the order should be reshipped or cancelled.

Fulfilment Repair

Fulfilment Repair is not a normal operator shipment action.

Use it only when:

  • an admin is correcting a legacy or historical shipmentless fulfilment case
  • stock needs a shipmentless correction path by design

Current behavior:

  • admin-only
  • requires an explicit reason
  • is the safe repair path when automatic later Shipment evidence attachment is blocked for historical review
  • does not create a second stock deduction

Operational queues to expect after shipment work

Morning Board separates shipment follow-up into distinct queues:

  • Orders Awaiting Pick for work that has not been picked yet
  • Picked Awaiting Dispatch for orders already picked but still needing dispatch action
  • Ready for Shipment Booking for fulfilled orders that still need shipment evidence attached
  • Manual / Client-Managed Shipments to Close for older manual-booked or client-managed shipment rows still open

If an order appears under Dispatch Problems, treat that as evidence drift rather than normal shipment work. Review the order before creating or correcting more shipment rows.

Manual shipments from the Shipments resource

The Shipments section also has Create Manual Shipment.

Use that when you need to create a shipment record directly from the shipment resource rather than from the normal order workflow. For normal order fulfilment, Orders and Create shipment remain the primary path.

Edit, tracking, and cleanup

Use Edit Shipment to review or update shipment metadata such as:

  • tracking numbers and status
  • labels and downloaded documents
  • carrier responses and booking metadata

The main shipment-list actions are:

  • Cancel Before Dispatch
  • Reverse Dispatch
  • Download Label
  • Mark as packed
  • Re-sync Tracking
  • Check tracking
  • Update tracking status
  • Deep refresh tracking
  • Set shipment status
  • Download labels (PDF)

Delete is a cleanup-only tool for cancelled pre-dispatch shipments. If stock was committed, use Reverse Dispatch instead.

Visibility basics

  • client_user cannot create shipments
  • client_user can view shipments that belong to their client
  • shipment correction actions depend on shipment state as well as permissions

If Create shipment is missing, check both the user role and the order state.

Related guides

Selective natural-language aliases

  • how do i create a shipment
  • how do i ship an order
  • how do i mark an order as shipped externally
  • how do i arrange customer collection
  • what is external fulfilment
  • what is the difference between external courier and external fulfilment
  • how do i correct a dispatched order
  • wrong order dispatched
  • complete fulfilment