Shipping Carrier and Label Printing Connector

The daily bottleneck in SAP B1 fulfilment

In most SAP Business One installations the warehouse runs two systems side by side. The Delivery document lives in SAP; the shipping label lives in a carrier's web portal. A packer picks the order in SAP, then re-keys the ship-to address, the weight and the service level into a browser, prints the label, copies the tracking number onto a sticky note, and goes back into SAP to paste it into a free-text remark field — if anyone remembers to. When a customer calls asking where the parcel is, nobody can answer from SAP. When finance reconciles the carrier invoice at month end, there is nothing in the ERP to reconcile it against.

The cost is not dramatic, it is constant: thirty to ninety seconds of re-keying per parcel, address typos that trigger correction surcharges, service levels chosen by habit rather than by rate, and a customer-service team that cannot see a tracking number without opening a second application.

What ECOSIRE builds

ECOSIRE builds a SAP Business One add-on that puts carrier rating, label generation and tracking write-back directly on the Delivery (ODLN) document, so the packer never leaves SAP.

Rating on the document

A rate-shop action on the Delivery reads the Business Partner ship-to address, the line items and the packed weight and dimensions, calls the carrier rating endpoints you are contracted with, and returns the available services with their quoted cost. The user picks a service; the choice, the quoted amount and the carrier account used are stored in User-Defined Fields on the document header so they are queryable, reportable and auditable later.

Label generation and printing

On confirmation the add-on requests the label from the carrier in your preferred format (ZPL for thermal printers, PDF for laser) and sends it to the printer mapped to that workstation or warehouse. Labels are archived against the document so a reprint never requires a second carrier transaction. Where you need a branded packing list or a commercial invoice alongside the label, we deliver those as Crystal Reports layouts bound to the Delivery so they print from the same action.

Tracking write-back and status

The tracking number, carrier, service, ship date and label cost are written back to the Delivery header UDFs and to a User-Defined Table holding one row per package — so multi-package shipments are modelled properly rather than crammed into a single field. A scheduled service polls carrier tracking endpoints and updates a status UDF (in transit, out for delivery, delivered, exception) plus a timestamp, giving your customer-service team an answer inside SAP.

Manifest, void and returns

End-of-day manifest close is driven from a User-Defined Object listing the day's shipments per carrier account. Voiding a label before manifest reverses the carrier transaction and clears the tracking UDFs in one step, so SAP and the carrier never drift apart. Return labels can be generated against a Return (ORDN) document where your carrier contract supports it.

Integration approach

The add-on reads and writes SAP through the Service Layer (OData/REST) for document and master-data operations, with DI API used where an operation is only exposed there. Carrier communication runs in a separate service process so a slow carrier endpoint never blocks the SAP client, and every carrier request and response is logged with a correlation id for support. Credentials for each carrier account are held encrypted outside the company database.

Controls and permissions

Carrier accounts, service allowlists and cost thresholds are configured per warehouse and per Business Partner group. Where you want a supervisor to sign off on premium services or on shipments above a cost threshold, we wire it to SAP's approval procedures rather than inventing a parallel workflow.

Who it is for

Distributors, wholesalers and e-commerce operations running fulfilment out of SAP Business One with meaningful daily parcel volume across one or more warehouses. It suits companies that already hold direct carrier contracts and want the rates and services in those contracts honoured inside the ERP, and companies whose customer-service load is dominated by "where is my order" calls.

It is a poor fit for pure LTL/freight operations with no parcel component, and for businesses shipping a handful of parcels a week where a carrier portal is genuinely fast enough.

How delivery works

Everything ECOSIRE ships is built to order. There is no download, no trial version and no shelf product — the connector is built for your carrier accounts, your document flow and your company database.

1. Scoping call. We walk your fulfilment process end to end: which carriers and account numbers, which services you are contracted for, single or multi-package, domestic or international (and therefore whether customs documentation is in scope), how many warehouses and printers, and which SAP documents trigger a shipment.

2. Fixed quote. You receive a written scope with the carrier set, the document touchpoints, the UDF/UDT/UDO inventory we will create, the reports we will deliver, and a fixed price and timeline. Nothing starts until you approve it.

3. Build. Typical lead time is two to four weeks depending on how many carriers and how much customs documentation is in scope. We develop against a copy of your company database structure so field names, series and document numbering match yours.

4. Install in test. We install into your test company first, load your carrier sandbox or test account credentials, and run your real order shapes through it with you — rate, label, manifest, void, track. You sign off on the test company before anything touches production.

5. Install in production. We schedule the production install with your Basis or hosting contact, migrate the configuration, switch to live carrier credentials, and stand by for the first live shipping day.

6. Support. A support window is included from production go-live, covering defects, carrier API changes that break the integration, and configuration adjustments. Ongoing support beyond that window is available as a separate agreement.

What we do not claim

We are not a carrier and we do not resell shipping. You bring your own carrier contracts and account credentials; the connector uses them. Rates shown are the rates the carrier returns for your account. Carrier APIs change, and when they do, changes inside your support window are ours to fix.