Modules:Freight Management
Contents |
Introduction
This module implements Freight Management for sales. It calculates the Freights that fit the requirements or conditions defined in the Sales Order. In addition to this it also calculates the Freight Costs and inserts it as a new line of the Sales Order in case it is charged to the customer.
With this module you will be able to:
- Define the carriers
- Define different price lists for the same carrier. Price lists based on weight, bundles, delivery period
- Define details of every price lists such as country/destination country, region/destination country, range of weight, bundles
- Create price lists based on existing ones applying a coefficient
- Define Delivery Period
- Calculate the carriers that fit sales order conditions based on the total weight of the order
- Calculate the freight cost of the sales order and to include it or not as a line in the document
- Calculated in the order will be populated in the subsequent goods shipment documents
Master data configuration
To calculate the Freight Cost of a Sales Order it is needed to set up some new entities, such as the available Carriers and their Freights.
Freight Category
In this window you define the rules to calculate the freight cost. There are 2 main configurations to set up in this window:
The Freight UOM determines the unit that it is used to measure the quantity that it is shipped. Two values are available Product Unit in case that the freight amount is determined by the number of units shipped and Weight in case that the freight amount is calculated based on the shipped weight. When Weight is selected a new field Weight UOM appears to set the UOM the weight has to be calculated.
The other configuration are the rounding modes. When the freight quantity is calculated some rounding might be needed. It is possible to set the rounding at line level (Round Line) and document level (Round Total).
List of Fields:
- Organization: An organization is a unit of your client or legal entity - examples are store, department. You can share data between organizations.
- Search Key: A search key allows for a fast method of finding a particular record.
- Name: A more descriptive identifier (that does need to be unique) of a record/document that is used as a default search option along with the search key (that is unique and mostly shorter). It is up to 60 characters in length.
- Description: A description is limited to 2000 characters.
- Freigth Uom: Indicates how the freight is calculated: Product Unit or Weight.
- Weight Uom: Displayed when Weight is selected as Freight UOM. This is not a closed list and will show the uoms that are defined as weight. This can be possible using the Packing Module.
- Round Total: Rounding mode applied at document level when freight quantity is being calculated. Four possible values: Not round, Round (Half up), Ceil (Round up) and Floor (truncate):
- Round up: For example weight 1,2 kg then in terms of calculation 2kg
- Floor: For example weight 1,3 kg then in terms of calculation 1kg
- Round Line: Rounding mode applied at line level when freight quantity is being calculated. Four possible values: Not round, Round (Half up), Ceil (Round up) and Floor (truncate)
 | Note: Do not mistake this window with the Core's window with the same name and similar fields. This module's window does have the Freight UOM and Rounding fields set as mandatory whiles core's window doesn't |
Delivery Period
In this window different types of deliveries are loaded. This types are often based on the delivery promised time. In 24 hours, next day before a fixed time, standard,... If a Fixed Freight Cost is used in the Sales Orders it is possible to define which Product to use by Delivery Period if no product is defined here the Fixed Cost Product defined in the Organization is used.
List of Fields:
- Organization
- An organization is a unit of your client or legal entity - examples are store, department. You can share data between organizations.
- Name
- A more descriptive identifier (that does need to be unique) of a record/document that is used as a default search option along with the search key (that is unique and mostly shorter). It is up to 60 characters in length.
- Description
- A description is limited to 2000 characters.
- Fixed Cost Product
- Product used in the Freight's Sales Order Line when fixed cost is used. The product selected here must be included in the Price List of the Sales Order.
Carrier
In this window are defined all the Carriers or Shipping Companies that the Organization works with. The freights of each of them are also included
| | Note: Do not mistake this window with the Core's window named Shipping Company |
Header Tab
In this tab the Carrier main information is set. Select a Business Partner to be able to compare the Carrier's invoices with the amount charged to customers. The Product needs to be set when the Freight Cost is charged to the customer based on the Ordered quantities. This product is then used in the Sales Order Line with the Freight Cost. it does not need to be included in the Sales Order's Price List as the price/amount is calculated based on the Freight Definition.
List of Fields:
- Organization
- An organization is a unit of your client or legal entity - examples are store, department. You can share data between organizations.
- Name
- A more descriptive identifier (that does need to be unique) of a record/document that is used as a default search option along with the search key (that is unique and mostly shorter). It is up to 60 characters in length.
- Description
- A description is limited to 2000 characters.
- Business Partner
- Business Partner of the Carrier.
- Product
- This is the product that is used in the sales order line when freight cost is calculated.
Freight Tab
Each of the Freights defined for a Carrier. Each freight has to define a Freight Category and a Delivery Period. They are valid during a valid Period of time defined by the Valid From Date and Valid To Date fields. The valid to Date can be left blank and when saving the record it is automatically calculated. There can only be one freight defined for each Carrier, Freight Category and Delivery Period at a time. To ensure this a validation is executed each time a new freight is modified to fix the Valid To Date to avoid overlapping of freights.
The Currency of the freight and Price Includes Tax are additional fields that need to be defined.
This tabs also includes the Create Freight button to ease the creation of freights. This process is used when a new freight based on an existing one is created. For example when the fares are updated and the previous freight is used as base. The process has some parameters:
- Freight: It is the base freight used to copy its Freight Definitions into the new freight.
- Multiplier Factor: It is a number that it is multiplied to the amounts defined in the Base Freight. For example to increase all the fares by a 10% a factor of 1.10 has to be defined.
- Fixed Factor: It is a number that is it added to all the amounts defined in the Base Freight. For example to increase all the fares by 1EUR a factor of 1 has to be defined.
- Apply Fixed Amount Factor first: Flag to define the order that the factors are applied. When checked it applies first the Fixed Amount and then the Multiplier factor.
List of Fields:
- Name
- A more descriptive identifier (that does need to be unique) of a record/document that is used as a default search option along with the search key (that is unique and mostly shorter). It is up to 60 characters in length.
- Freight Category
- A Freight Category defines a set of rules to calculate the Freight Amount
- Valid From Date
- The Valid From date indicates the first day of a date range
- Valid to Date
- The Valid To date indicates the last day of a date range
- Currency
- Indicates the currency to be used when processing this document.
- Delivery Period
- Defines a Delivery Period or method based on the promised delivery time or the guarantee of the Freight
- Price Includes Tax
- The Tax Included flag indicates if the prices include tax. This is also known as the gross price.
- Create Freight Button
- Process to automatically create the Freight Definitions based on another Freight.
Definition Tab
In this tab each fare of the Freight is defined. The Fares can be based on the Origin and Destination locations and a quantity range to be shipped.
The locations are defined by Region and Country. They can be left empty if desired having preference those with more detailed information. For example if there is a definition without location definition and another one with destination USA and a freight to that country is send the definition with the destination Country defined is used.
The quantity range is measured based on the unit of the Freight Category. Product Units or Weight.
There is also a flag Is Unit Price that defines when the Freight Amount is an amount or a price that needs to be multiplied by the freight quantity.
List of Fields:
- Country
- The To Country indicates the sending country on a document.
- Destination Country
- The To Country indicates the receiving country on a document.
- Region
- The Region identifies a unique Region for this Country. It indicates the sending region on a document.
- Destination Region
- The To Region indicates the receiving region on a document.
- Min Quantity
- Minimum Quantity.
- Max Quantity
- Maximum Quantity.
- Freight Amount
- The Freight Amount indicates the amount charged for Freight in the document currency.
- Is Unit Price
- This field indicates if the Freight Amount is a fixed Amount or is a Price per unit.
Organization
In the Organization it is possible to set the Fixed Cost product. This is used when a Fixed Cost Freight is added to a Sales Order and no Fixed Cost Product is defined in the Delivery Period.
Product
In case the Freight Category uses Weight as Freight UOM. It is needed to set the weight and UOM of the Products (fields Weight and Weight UOM). With these values it is possible to calculate the total weight of the Sales Order.
Freights in Sales Order
Header freight definition
When the sales order is being created it is possible to define how the freight costs are managed. This is done when all the lines have been added just before booking it.
First is defined the Delivery Charges. This is a list of values that determines how the delivery is done and charged.
Available Delivery Charges values are:
- Cost based on Ordered quantities (Product Units)
- The real cost is charged to the Customer adding a new Order Line. The freight quantity is calculated based on the Product Units.
- Cost based on Ordered quantities (Weight)
- The real cost is charged to the Customer adding a new Order Line. The freight quantity is calculated based on the Total Weight of the order.
- Fixed cost
- A Fixed Cost is charged to the Customer not considering the shipped freight quantity.
- Free
- No cost is charged to the customer.
- No cost. Local pickup. Freight does not need to be calculated as the customer is in charge to picking up the delivery.
- No cost. Carriage due. No freight cost needs to be calculated as the carrier charges directly the cost to the customer.
When this field is left blank or No cost. Local pickup is selected no further actions needs to be done. Blank means that the Freight Management is not applied to this Order.
When any of the other 5 values is selected it is needed to select the Freight to be used to ship the Order to the Customer.
The Weight UOM field is defaulted to the UOM for Weight defined in the Client. When this field is filled the Total Weight is calculated automatically while the order lines are inserted. If there is a product whose weight is not defined or there is no a conversion defined to the order weight uom the total weight is left blank. In case Cost based on Ordered quantities (Weight) Delivery Charges is selected an error message is shown not allowing to modify the Sales Order line until the issue is solved.
| | In some cases the weight is not calculated. To fire the calculation of the weight please update one of the lines to trigger the process. |
Select Freight button
The freight is selected using the Select Freight button. This shows in a new window all the Freights available for this Sales Order. The available freights can be pre filtered by Delivery Period in case one is already selected in the Sales Order header. This filter can be removed using the funnel icon.
The available freights are selected based on the Origin and Destination of the Sales Order, the Freight quantity and the Scheduled Delivery Date. They are ordered by the Final Freight Amount the first one, which is also the cheapest, is automatically selected.
The Final Freight Amount is the amount that would be charged to the customer. It is converted to the currency of the Sales Order. If the Sales Order uses a Price List that includes taxes the final freight amount will also include taxes.
There are some scenarios when the final freight amount cannot be calculated. In these cases the freight cannot be selected showing an alert with a descriptive message of the issue.
The possible issues are:
- Missing conversion between the freight's currency and the order's currency.
- Not having a total weight calculated on the sales order.
- Not having a conversion between the sales order weight uom and the weight uom of the freight.
- Missing product in the carrier.
- Missing tax definition for the Product.
When the desired freight is selected press the Done button to close the window. The Freight and Delivery Period are updated with the selected values.
Freight Cost Order Line
When Cost based on Ordered quantities (Product Units), Cost based on Ordered quantities (Weight) or Fixed Cost are selected a new Order Line is inserted when the Freight is selected. This order line has the product defined in the Carrier with a quantity of 1. The amount is the calculated freight cost that has to be charged to the User.
If Fixed Cost is used the Product is the Fixed Cost Product defined in the Delivery Period or the Organization. The amount in this case is the price of the Product as defined in the Price List of the Sales Order. If the Product is not found or it is not present in the Price List an error is showed when the Freight is Selected and the user needs to select again the freight when the issue is solved.
Set weight process
It is possible to manually set the total weight of the Sales Order. To display the button it is necessary to define a preference with the Enable to manually set weight in orders property and any value.
This process has a unique parameter to set the desired weight in the weight UOM of the Sales Order.
Freights in Goods Shipment
When a Goods Shipment is created based on a single Sales Order some freight information is copied into it. If the Shipment is created manually using the Create Lines From button this information is copied when it is completed. The fields copied are:
- Delivery Charges
- Freight
- Delivery Notes