Introduction

The despatch process in PVX is the final step in the fulfilment of sales orders, and ends with the system recording that an order has been sent to a customer. During the despatch process, the items picked for the sales order are scanned, packed and labelled. When the process is complete, the items associated with the sales order are removed from the inventory within PVX.

You can record and manage the carriers that you use to ship your orders to customers, and the different shipping services that they offer. When an order is despatched within PVX, you can record the carrier’s tracking number in the system.

Despatching is normally carried out in a dedicated area of the warehouse that is equipped with a computer (which should have access to the Internet), a barcode scanner and a label printer. You can find out more about despatch benches and equipment in a separate article.

This article describes how to organise carriers and services in PVX, how to use the web app to despatch sales orders, and how to despatch using the mobile app if this option is available on your system.

Organising carriers and service types

The term ‘carriers’ in PVX refers to the couriers or postal services used to despatch sales orders, such as Royal Mail or DHL. Carriers will often have ‘service types’ associated with them. These are the different delivery services that each carrier offers, such as standard or express deliveries. Each service type can have a barcode associated with it that you can print and scan to speed up the despatch process.

The carrier names and service types can be set up in PVX for use when despatching orders. Depending on how your system is configured, this information might appear on your sales orders.

1. Go to the Carriers tab in the Warehouse module of the PVX web app.

2. Click Add new.

3. In the Add new carrier dialog, enter the carrier name. Carrier names must be unique within your system.

4. To enter a service type, click Add.

5. In the Add new service type dialog, enter the service name and barcode (if required). Service type barcodes must be unique within your system.

6. Click Add to add further service types, or click Remove if you want to remove a service type.

7. Click Save. The new carrier will be displayed in the tab.

You can edit the details of a carrier by clicking it in the tab, clicking View and then clicking Edit in the Edit Carrier dialog. You can also delete a carrier by clicking Delete and then Proceed.

Despatching using the web app

There are two methods of despatching orders using the web app: by order or by load. The standard approach is to despatch by order, where each order is despatched separately. Despatching by load allows you to combine several sales orders in a single consignment, which can save shipping costs.

Despatching by order

The general process is described below and shown in the flowchart. There may be some differences in your system depending on how your despatch process has been configured.

1. Go to the Despatch tab in the Warehouse module of the PVX web app.

2. Click Despatch.

3. If prompted, select the document types that you want to use for your despatch, and the printers and print templates associated with them; click OK. Refer to this article for more information on printing documents in PVX.

4. Enter or scan either a sales order barcode (if you use printed sales orders) or a despatch location barcode (if you have a paperless system). If a despatch location has been scanned, a list of the items that have been picked to that despatch location will be displayed. If a sales order has been scanned, a list of the items that have been picked for that sales order will be displayed.
   
   
   

5. Scan any item that appears on the list. You do not have to scan the items in the order that they appear in the list. If an item from a single item order has been scanned, any relevant documents such as a carrier label and despatch note will be printed for the order at this point. If an item from a multiple item order has been scanned, a summary of the sales order relating to the item will be displayed, with the scanned item on the right side of the screen.
   
   
   

6. Scan the remaining items for that sales order (shown on the left of the screen). Each time an item is scanned it will move over to the right side of the screen.

7. When all items on the sales order have been scanned, you will be prompted to input relevant information for the despatch, such as the carrier and the service code. You can also scan the package type if you are using these on your system, or enter the package weight and dimensions manually.

8. Click Add tracking information to enter a despatch tracking number if required, and click OK.

9. Click Complete despatch and any relevant documents for the despatch will be printed such as a carrier label and a despatch note. The despatch will be displayed in the Despatch tab, and you can see a summary by clicking the despatch and then clicking View. You can also print the despatch documents for a previous despatch by clicking the despatch in the tab and then clicking Print.

Despatching by load

If a single customer has multiple sales orders being fulfilled in your warehouse, you can combine the orders in a 'load' and despatch them as a single consignment under one load reference with one set of despatch documents. This can be particularly useful if your warehouse operation despatches items on pallets or in containers and the items needed for a customer's orders are in different containers.

Example:

During picking, items for four sales orders from the same customer have been picked to three containers (pallets in this case), with the sales orders mixed up as shown below. When using despatch by load, PVX will recognise that the sales orders across the three pallets are connected and will generate one load reference and one set of documents for the despatch.

1. Go to the Despatch tab in the Warehouse module of the web app.

2. Click Despatch by load.

3. Scan one of the sales orders that is included within the load. A summary of the scanned sales order will be displayed along with a summary of any other sales orders picked to the corresponding containers.

4. Enter a Load Reference if required (this is not mandatory but it can help with tracking the separate containers when delivered).

5. Click Complete despatch and any relevant documents for the despatch will be printed such as a carrier label and a despatch note. The despatch will be displayed in the Despatch tab, and you can see a summary by clicking the despatch and then clicking View. You can also print the despatch documents for a previous despatch by clicking the despatch in the tab and then clicking Print load.

Despatch by load in the web app becomes more difficult if the items have not been picked across multiple containers, as shown below.

In this example, the system will not recognise that the sales orders are connected and by default will create an individual load reference and a set of paperwork for each pallet. However, you can despatch the pallets as a single load by using the mobile app and entering a load reference.

Despatching from the Sales tab

You can despatch individual sales orders directly from the Sales tab in the web app.

1. Tick the Select checkbox for the sales order you want to despatch. If you select more than one sales order then PVX will allow you to despatch them one after the other.

2. Click and select Despatch from the drop-down list. The despatch screen is displayed. You can now scan the items and despatch the order in the same way as in the Despatch tab. Once despatched, the sales order disappears from the Sales tab (unless you tick the Show Despatched / Cancelled orders checkbox).

Alternatively, you can use the Quick Despatch option:

1. Tick the Select checkbox for the sales order you want to despatch. If you select more than one sales order then PVX will allow you to despatch them all at the same time.

2. Click and select Quick Despatch from the drop-down list.

3. Click Yes to confirm that you want to despatch the selected order. The order is despatched in the WMS, but note that no documents are printed automatically using this option.

Despatching using the mobile app

You can use the PVX mobile app to despatch sales orders if the Mobile despatch option is added to your account. This will allow you to select Despatch from the menu of actions in the app.

There are four despatch options that may be available in the mobile app:

By Item

1. Start by scanning a sales order, despatch location or container, and tap NEXT. The app displays the associated items.

2. Scan an item, select the quantity to despatch, and tap PACK.

3. Enter the carrier and service and tap DESPATCH.

Despatching from multiple despatch locations

This can be useful when despatching multi-item orders which are split across multiple locations.

Scan all despatch locations that the user may despatch from when you enter "Despatch by item". You'll then see a list of orders contained in these locations. Start scanning an item, it will bring up the order and inform you where the other items on this order are. You can 'Pack' the order at any point, or when all items for that order have been scanned.

If the location you've scanned contains all the items for a single order, you can choose to scan each item or simply despatch the order immediately. Similarly, if a location contains a number of the same items needed for a collection of single-item orders, you can choose to despatch each order without further scanning, or despatch all the orders in one operation. These options can speed up your despatch process providing you have confidence that there's been no changes to the location's contents since the items were originally scanned in during picking.

Fast despatch for singles

Very useful when you have a number of single item orders for the same item. Pick the item into a single location, when you despatch from that location the system will recognise they are identical and will print all the labels at once.

1. Pick all single item orders for the same Item to a location or container

2. Use Despatch by Item and scan the location or container barcode

3. The system will prompt 'All Orders are identical do you want to despatch All?'

4. Yes - All 50 labels print

Quick despatch by order

In a similar way to the Quick Despatch option in the web app, this allows you to select and despatch a sales order without requiring any further scans.

1. Scan the sales order barcode or select the sales order from the list of current orders in the system.

2. Tap DESPATCH.

By Load

If you are despatching a number of sales orders to the same customer, then you can combine them in a single consignment.

1. Enter or scan a load reference to track the despatch of the combined sales orders.

2. Enter or scan the sales orders you want to despatch in the load. These must all be for the same customer.

3. Select the carrier service and package type if required and tap DESPATCH.

By Container (if added to your account)

Despatch by container is a chargeable feature. You need to raise a ticket with the PVX helpdesk to have this option enabled on your account.

Enter or scan the containers you want to despatch, and add a tracking number of required.You can despatch one or more containers in a single consignment using this option (if you use containers in your warehouse). NB this function is only available on the mobile app.

1. Swipe right to view a summary of the sales orders in each container, and swipe right again to view a list of the items under each sales order.

2. Tap DESPATCH.

In all the options above, the despatch documents will print automatically when you have completed the despatch if they are set up in the app settings.

The exact sequence of screens you see when using each option will depend on how they are configured by your system administrator. You can also customise your workflow by changing the order of the steps on each screen using the app's edit option ().

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