Deliveries (ASNs, RMAs, etc.)
ShipStream implements multiple types of entities related to receiving inventory using a common entity type known as a Delivery. These entities are:
- ASNs - Advanced Shipping Notifications
- RMAs - Return Merchandise Authorizations
- Other Deliveries - Any other user-created delivery that isn't an ASN or RMA
- Cancellations - Inventory that was picked and needs to be re-stocked
- Work Order Outputs - The result of a Work Order that needs to be re-stocked
These deliveries can all be managed under the Receiving menu in ShipStream. They also all use the same API methods under the "delivery" namespace. However, there are a few notable differences in how these different types are processed.
Workflow
The delivery workflow is Accepting, Processing, Put-Away and Commit. The Cancellation and Work Order Output types skip the Accepting and Processing steps.
New | Accepting | Processing | Put-Away | Commit | |
ASN | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
RMA | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Other Delivery | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Cancellation | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Work Order Output | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
New
A delivery which has just been created and not yet accepted is in the "New" status.
Accepting
Accepting a delivery involves identifying the delivery that corresponds to the physical shipment received and recording some basic information about the delivery.
- Number of containers
- The type and weight of each container
- The date received
Upon completion of the above steps the status will advance to either "Accepted" if the delivery is empty and waiting for line items to be added, or "Ready To Process".
Processing
Processing a delivery involves verifying that what was received matches what was expected or else recording Exceptions with details about the discrepancies. These exceptions are either Shortages or Overages and denote items that are missing or damaged from the delivery, or items that were received but not expected to be received.
Upon completion of the Processing step the status will advance to either "Processed" if there were no exceptions recorded or "Processing Exception". In the latter case the exceptions must all be either accepted or rejected and then when a user clicks "Finish Processing" the status will finally advance to "Processed".
Put-Away
The Put-Away process is relocating the inventory from the receiving stage to shelf locations.
Commit
The final step is one that can be performed automatically or manually by a user, but it is what takes the inventory from being in "Put-Away" status to "Available". When the inventory is committed it will be automatically allocated to existing backorders and made available for new orders. Before it is committed the inventory that was put-away is not available for sale, which may be desirable, for example to give the merchant an opportunity to update their pricing before the inventory is made available for sale.
