PeachPro Doc - SHP Peachtree Interface to External Ship Programs


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SHP Peachtree Interface to External Ship Programs Available for Rel 13 and Greater Only

Overview

SHP (called Shipper) is an add-on to Peachtree which provides a method of passing invoice data from Peachtree to an external Ship Program. The program has been tested with StarShip and UPS shipping programs. It is very probable that it will work with other shipping programs. Once the shipment is posted in the Ship Program, Shipper can retrieve the shipping data from the Ship Program and update the appropriate invoices in Peachtree.

The sequence is as follows:

1. The Peachtree user enters a command into Peachtree (Shipper) indicating invoices are ready for shipment. Shipper requests a range of invoices; then builds a file which contains the information required by the Ship Program.

2. The shipping department then enters a command into the Ship Program telling it to import the file built above. The invoices will then be updated with the packaging (e.g. weight, tracking number) on the Ship Program database.

3. At some point in time, the Ship Program packages will be "posted". At this time, the Ship Program builds a file which contains the data required by Shipper. Some customers may not require this step.

4. The Peachtree operator then enters a command indicating it is time to update the invoices from the Ship Program file. The shipping information is then added as comments to the invoices for all the invoices included in this batch. Some customers may not require this step.

Configuring Shipper

In order to function, Shipper needs a configuration file. This file will be built the first time you run any of the Shipper functions. The following window pops up to do that configuration (this shows it already filled out):

First, look at the first 2 entered lines. These are the file names used to pass data to/from the Ship Program. Note that each contains the characters ??. Shipper scans these file names and replaces the first occurrence of the ?? characters with the 2 character Peachtree Company ID, These 2 characters do not have to be the last 2 characters in the file name. They can be anywhere in the file name. In the above example, if your current Company ID were "WD", Shipper would open "O:\PCA\Shipper\ToShip.DWD" as the file name to be sent to the Ship Program. Note the file names must be fully qualified. If you don't want the Company ID as part of the file name, just don't use the ?? notation.

The third line of the Configuration file is a template for the comment to be placed on the invoices when the shipping information is passed back. Shipper searches this template looking for the following keyword strings:

?Pkg?
?Track?
?Weight?

If used, these keywords must be entered exactly like they are shown, including the case and the question marks. When Shipper finds one of these keywords, it substitutes the appropriate value in the template in place of the keyword. The rest of the template is just boilerplate. For your invoice comment to have much meaning, you will have to use at least one of these keywords.

In the above example, Shipper will find the keyword ?Pkg? and will substitute in the template the package number. Similarly, Shipper will find ?Track? and ?Weight? and will substitute the tracking number and weight information for those 2 keywords. The following template might generate a comment something like this after the substitution:

Pkg# ?Pkg? Track#=?Track? Wgt=?Weight?	<--Template

Pkg# 2 Track#=1995430571350712 Wgt=5	<--Invoice Cmt

Notice that Shipper only places the required text in the place of the keywords. You must place any spaces before and after the keywords if you want spaces there. You can observe that by noticing that Wgt has a space in front of it, but does not have a space after the = sign.

The ?Pkg? is a special variable that is just a count of the number of packages sent. If you have 3 packages on an invoice, you will have 3 comments where the ?Pkg? variable would be 1, 2 , and 3 for the 3 lines.

You need to be conservative in the boiler plate such that your comment is 40 characters or less after the Shipper substitutions. This is because Peachtree prints 40 character comment lines. If you have more than 40 characters, the comment will wrap to another line.

Configuring the Ship Program
In addition to configuring Shipper, you must also configure the Ship Program such that both programs understand the formats of the files used for exchanging information. The Ship Program will have 2 places that have to be configured: Import & Export.

Import - The Ship Program will have to map the fields being sent from Shipper into the corresponding fields in the Ship database. The following are the Peachtree fields sent by Shipper:

Invoice Number; Customer ID; Customer Phone; Ship Name; Ship Address 1; Ship Address 2; Ship Address 3 (City, ST); Ship City; Ship State; Ship Zip; PO Number; Ship Via

Export - The export is done at End of Day/Post time. Shipper accepts 3 fields from the Ship Program:

Invoice Number; Tracking Number; Weight

The last 2 fields are formated based on the Template and placed as comments on the invoice. If there is more than 1 package for an invoice, Shipper expects a record for each package.

Operation
When you are ready to ship some invoices (they must be invoices (not orders) and they must not be posted), you would enter Shipper through the Extended Processing option in the Peachtree Sales Invoicing menu. The first screen will be an options box as follows (You may have other choices depending on additional enhancements):

Selecting the 'External Ship Program' option will cause the Shipper Main Menu to be displayed:

If you select "S" from the main menu, Shipper will prompt you for a beginning and ending invoice numbers. F2 lookup is provided for these 2 prompts.

If the shipping file already exists and contains shipping data, it will warn you and give you the option of overlaying the previous file, or appending the new invoices on the end of the existing file. If the batch already out there has been imported into the Ship Program, you would overlay the previous file; otherwise you would append to the end of the previous file.

The file would then be built and Shipper will return to the Peachtree menu.

If you select "R" from the main menu, Shipper will read the file which was passed from the Ship Menu. It then goes into the Peachtree Invoicing files and adds comments to the invoices which were shipped. This takes place even if the invoices have been posted. The comments are generated from the template in the configuration file. Sample comments generated from the following template for two packages would look like this when viewed in the Peachtree invoice edit window:

Track=?Track? Wt=?Weight?	<--Template

CM Track=2269 0886 86 6 Wt=25	<--Comment Package 1
CM Track=2559 9914 14 6 Wt=2	<--Comment Package 2

If invoices are found which are not on the invoice file, the user is warned and the invoice is skipped.

Once the invoices have all been updated, Shipper empties the file passed from the Ship Program.

If you select "X" from the main menu, Shipper will reset the Transfer files to an empty condition.

If you select "M" from the main menu, Shipper display the Configuration File dialog shown earlier, and allow you to make changes to the configuration.

Contact Information:

11020 Audelia Rd., Suite C109
Dallas, TX 75243

Phone:	214-342-3939
Toll Free:	800-289-4626
Fax:	214-342-2929