Some carriers require shipping manifests to properly process shipments.
Depending on the carrier, the following terms may refer to this list: shipment manifest, SCAN form, Order Summary, and End of Day form. ShipEngine uses the term 'Manifest' to refer to these documents.
ShipEngine provides the ability to close shipments for certain carriers and print a carrier-specific form to share with the carrier's driver for scanning.
Create manifest documents using ShipEngine’s manifests endpoint. Please note, in order to create manifests with ShipEngine, a warehouse_id must be used instead of a ship_from object when creating labels.
USPS
USPS refers to manifests as SCAN forms. USPS SCAN forms are created the same way that other carrier manifests are created with ShipEngine. Though a SCAN form is not required, providing them for large numbers of packages will help the USPS driver pick up your packages more efficiently. With a SCAN form, the driver can scan the form and skip having to scan each package individually.
USPS guidelines prevent you from creating SCAN forms for shipments with a Ship Date in the past. You can close only the present day's or future days' shipments.
Be sure to close USPS shipments before 9 pm local time, as this is often the cut-off time to close that day's shipments.
UPS
UPS End of Day and PLD information can be submitted electronically through the UPS Paperless Invoicing program. To apply for UPS Paperless Invoicing online, log in to your UPS account and go to Actions > View Account Details. Click Paperless Invoicing and select Enroll My Account.
When you print UPS labels through ShipEngine, there is no need to provide an End of Day form or manifest to your UPS driver. Likewise, you do not need to manually send UPS a Package Level Detail (PLD).
ShipEngine does this automatically. The bottom right-hand corner of each UPS label includes a package icon that indicates the package has been pre-scanned.
Drivers are not required to scan each package individually. For these reasons, there is no printable manifest available through ShipEngine.
FedEx
There is no need to provide an End of Day report to your driver for FedEx shipments. All shipment information is transmitted back to FedEx when each label is created, and drivers are not required to scan each package individually.
ShipEngine does create a printable version for FedEx Ground shipments meeting specific criteria, however, the driver will not scan this as it is merely a physical record of the shipments that already exist within the FedEx system.
Why aren't all my shipments on my FedEx Ground Pickup Manifest?
When printing a FedEx Ground Pickup Manifest in ShipEngine, you may notice that the number of Total Packages doesn't always match the number of FedEx shipments closed out in ShipEngine for a particular ship date.
This common discrepancy occurs because FedEx only allows certain types of packages and their tracking numbers to show up on the FedEx Ground Pickup Manifest.
Here's a list of FedEx's criteria:
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Collect on Delivery Amount (COD Amount)
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Declared Value greater than $100 U.S.
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84" Oversize
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Additional Handling
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Acknowledgement of Delivery (A.O.D)
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Residential
Shipments that do not have one of these specialized service options cannot be included on the FedEx Ground Pickup Manifest, nor will they appear in any counts on the manifest.
Note
The discrepancy in counts usually appears in the Total Packages field. The column headers reference FedEx's criteria.
FleetOptics
Manifesting is required however, there is no need to provide an End of Day report to your driver for FleetOptics shipments. All shipment information is transmitted electronically back to FleetOptics when the shipments are closed in ShipEngine.
