How can 2Ship simplify your shipping process if you’re a NetSuite user?
With the rapid adoption of cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) many businesses of all sizes and industries are adopting enterprise software systems to manage their information and operations. NetSuite is one of those software platforms that have become very popular with the small to medium sized businesses. NetSuite provides CRM, operations, finance and distribution functionality for these businesses.
Connection and Integration
One of the major trends for the promotion of profitable growth is to connect cloud-based software systems to develop automated processes that streamline the business and improve the service outcomes for all parties. 2Ship has invested the necessary time and expertise to develop a full integration between NetSuite and 2Ship.
How does the NetSuite shipping integration work?
Because 2Ship has a full set of APIs, connecting NetSuite and 2Ship is relatively straight forward with minimal set up and trouble shooting time to test the connection.
Once fully connected NetSuite takes advantage of 2Ship’s ability to provide “Live Rates”. This feature allows NetSuite to poll 2Ship’s carrier rates using the dimensions and weight of the shipment packages to return all available options, allowing the operator to select the best option.
Once the carrier has been selected then the NetSuite operator can ship from within NetSuite and a carrier pdf shipping label will be returned back to NetSuite from 2Ship to be stored for later reference if required.
Beyond the shipping label NetSuite is also automatically updated with other shipping details such as:
- The shipment master tracking number
- Estimated shipping cost
- Carrier name
- Carrier service
- Tracking URL link to the 2Ship tracking page
The above fields are the standard fields that are integrated, however of course it is possible to map additional fields as part of a customised integration if required.
What are the benefits of this type of seamless NetSuite shipping integration?
A major reduction of duplication; wasted time and human error. By having all your data in NetSuite and shipping from there you eliminate the need to double handle and re-enter the data in 2Ship.
Maintaining only one database of package types and receiver address reduces the chance of creating address or data entry errors, as well as saving time by maintaining this data in only one database.
Using this NetSuite shipping integration with 2Ship means that as soon as the shipment has been made the carrier information including the tracking number is populated back in NetSuite. This data is now available for all your customer service and operations staff. That is across your organisation, so that customer service staff can immediately respond to any queries from receivers about when the shipment was made, which carrier is delivering it and how its tracking. This immediacy improves service in the receivers’ eyes and improves dramatically the productivity of your staff.
Another benefit of this real time integration is that NetSuite users can choose to issue invoices including the estimated freight charge. They can do so as the shipment leaves. Shippers can even include a tracking link to the shipment on their invoice, if they wish. As freight charges continue to rise, the ability to easily recover part or all of those freight charges from your customer can make a significant financial impact on your business. Having 2Ship and NetSuite tightly integrated like this enables this freight recovery process to be accurate, automatic and hassle free.
Report writing and cost to serve analysis – Now that your estimated shipping cost for each consignment has been automatically fed back into NetSuite via 2Ship’s live rate API, as a shipper you can now use this important data to develop reporting tools around the following:
- Your freight costs as a percentage of sales by product line, or customer, or even customer grouping
- Cost to serve calculations for your top ten customers, or top ten SKU – for example
We all know that accurate and timely data is becoming more and more important to business profitability and analysis. As a user of a NetSuite shipping integration with 2Ship user you now have the ability to control your shipping data like never before and make some informed and timely decisions on the development of your business.
In summary, I think you can see that this API based, real time Netsuite shipping integration with a powerful platform like 2Ship, offers NetSuite users a whole new level of sophistication and automation in their shipping processes. If you want to take advantage of the cloud-based software revolution to streamline and automate your processes, reduce your costs and improve your level of service significantly, then let us know. As the Australian agents for 2Ship, we will be happy to walk you through how easy it is to connect these two powerful platforms and grow your business. You can also learn more about 2Ship’s sophisticated TMS here.