Shipping Software Integration

Dynamics GP
1

Hi All,

What’s everyone using for shipping software these days? What’s the best tool for integrating FedEx and UPS charges and tracking numbers into SOP transactions?

2

Hi Deborah,

My company uses StarShip by Vtechnologies to shop rates, as well as to integrate shipping charges and tracking numbers into GP. I believe they may have a more basic product than StarShip too called Ship Gear that might do what you list above for less cost. We needed multiple LTL carrier capabilities so we had to go with StarShip as our choice.

I like all the additional reporting capabilities StarShip gives us as well as the additional shipping info it adds into the order comments in GP versus us having almost no information with our previous (no longer supported Vship) solution. The biggest complaint I get from our shipping department is that because StarShip is fully integrated with the carrier APIs, there has been a learning curve of making sure all the information the API requires is filled in (or the shipment will error out), and the fact that when FedEx’s API goes down, you can’t ship anything in StarShip via FedEx until it’s back up (I point out FedEx because they are the one who’s API goes down the most).

Here’s their website: https://www.vtechnologies.com/

Regards,
Mark Verbeek
Controller and Director of IT
Carstens Inc

3

ShipGear or StarShip, both from VTechnologies work well and have done so for years. @Mark_Verbeek posted the website link in his earlier reply.

4

In the space, StarShip and ShipGear from VTechnologies seem popular. ShipStation has some ecom integration capabilities that are helpful although it’s not as tightly integrated with GP. My company has a few options, from basic ones that connect GP with FedEx ShipManager and UPS Worldship, to more complex ones that rate shop and handle parcel and LTL data, etc.

When evaluating the options, you would want to consider these couple of points:

  • How they handle rate quoting, to shop for the best rates (shipping costs can be a margin killer)
  • How they handle rate writeback, including any cost markups you want to put on it
  • And for EDI users a big consideration is the package build-out (which items are in package/pallet) so you can produce the 856 ASN info back to the trading partner

Hope that’s helpful