Shipping overview, ready to ship and parcels that need attention

Shipping in the sidebar opens the Shipping overview. It answers two questions: which paid orders still need to go out, and where the parcels you already sent are. What you see depends on whether you have connected a carrier app.

A carrier app is optional. Most stores never connect one: they price delivery with their own zones and rates and type in a tracking number by hand. The overview works for both kinds of store. Only the carrier version has labels, parcels and postage figures, because those only exist once Brainerce buys a label.

The overview without a carrier app

The header says Manual zones and tracking and has a Zones & rates button.

• Awaiting shipment lists paid orders that have no tracking number yet. Each row has an Add tracking button, which opens the same tracking window as the order itself: enter the tracking number and carrier, and the order moves to Shipped. You need permission to update order status to see the button.
• When nothing is waiting it says Every paid order has shipped. Nothing waiting on you.
• At the bottom, Connect a carrier for live rates and printable labels with a Browse apps button.

There is no parcel list, no In transit tile and no postage figure in this version. Brainerce only records parcels when it buys a label, and without a carrier it buys none. Nothing is missing because of a fault.

The overview with a carrier app

The header names the carrier and where parcels ship from (for example "EasyPost, ships from Tel Aviv, IL"). The Settings icon at the top right opens the carrier's settings (see Settings icon below). If you have connected more than one carrier, a Settings for picker lets you choose which carrier's settings you are editing. It changes only what is on screen, not which carrier buys a label.

The two tiles

• In transit counts parcels the carrier has actually picked up (in transit or out for delivery). A label that is bought but not yet scanned is not counted, because it is still waiting for the courier.
• The second tile changes with your carrier. Shipping margin compares what customers paid for shipping with what the carrier billed (shown only once at least one parcel has both numbers in the same currency). A carrier that bills you under your own contract, like HFD and Cheetah, shows Delivered instead. Otherwise it shows Postage spend with the average per parcel, or No labels bought yet.

Ready to ship

Ready to ship lists paid orders that have no tracking number and are still in a status that can be shipped (Pending, Processing, Paid or On hold). Each row has a Buy label button.

• It shows the six most recent. The count badge is the number waiting.
• It reads your 100 most recent orders. An unshipped order older than that does not show here, so open Orders for anything old.
• An order that was imported read-only from another platform never shows here.
• Buy label opens the Create Shipping Label window. Billing for the label goes directly to your carrier account. See Order status and shipping.

Needs attention

This panel only appears when something is wrong. It shows up to five rows, worst first:

Costing more than you charged

When a label cost more than the customer paid for shipping, the five worst parcels show here, worst first, as Charged $4.40, billed $4.90. The usual cause is that the parcel size used for the quote at checkout is not the size that shipped, because carriers bill on dimensions as well as weight. Fill in the weight and size of your products, or the default package size in the carrier's settings, to close the gap. Only parcels where both amounts are in the same currency are compared, so a gap that is only exchange rate never appears here.

Shipments

Shipments lists your latest six parcels with the order number, destination, carrier, service and tracking number. The status badge is one of Label ready, Shipment created (the carrier booked it but gave no printable label), Label not ready, In transit, Out for delivery, Delivered, Cancelled, Failed or Returned to sender.

• Print label is shown only while the status is Label ready. After the carrier scans the parcel the link goes away, because the label is no longer needed.
• Get label appears on Label not ready. The carrier booked and billed the shipment but has not handed over the label yet. Press it again in a minute. Nothing is lost.
• Cancel shipment is shown while the parcel has not been picked up yet: on Label ready, Shipment created and Label not ready. It is not shown on a parcel from a carrier that cannot be cancelled from Brainerce, such as Shippo. Brainerce asks the carrier to cancel, and you confirm first. See below.

You can only see the latest parcels here. The full parcel table (Shipping → Shipments) is a staff-only page, so ask support if you need an older parcel. See Shipments.

Cancel a shipment and void its label

1. On Shipping, find the parcel under Shipments. It must not have been picked up yet (Label ready, Shipment created or Label not ready).
2. Press Cancel shipment. You need permission to fulfil orders.
3. Read the confirmation, which names the carrier and the tracking number, and press Cancel shipment again.

This only works while the courier has not collected the parcel. If the carrier refuses, nothing changes and you see the carrier's reason. The cancellation is the carrier's decision, not Brainerce's.

• EasyPost, HFD and Cheetah support cancelling from Brainerce. HFD and Cheetah must have cancelling switched on for your account on their side.
• Shippo labels cannot be cancelled from Brainerce. There is no Cancel shipment link on a Shippo parcel, because Shippo has no cancel step for Brainerce to call. Void the label in your Shippo account. The same goes for any carrier app that does not support cancelling.
• A tracking number you typed in by hand has no label to cancel. Correct or clear it on the order.

Ship-from address

If a carrier is connected and Brainerce has no address to ship from, a yellow panel appears: Nobody can be quoted a shipping price right now. Without an address the carrier cannot price a delivery at checkout and cannot buy a label.

Fill in Street address, City, Postal code, Country and Phone and press Save address. Street, city, postal code and country are required. The phone is optional but needed for parcels going abroad. The panel disappears once the address is saved. You need permission to manage integrations to save it.

• The address is stored on your warehouse, not on the carrier. If you install two carriers you type it once.
• If you have no warehouse yet, saving the address creates one for you, named after your store (for example "My Shop Warehouse") and marked as the default. It counts toward your plan's warehouse limit. If you already have a warehouse, only its address changes: it is never renamed or promoted. See Warehouses.
• When an order was allocated from a particular warehouse, the parcel ships from that warehouse if it has a complete address. Otherwise it ships from your default warehouse (the one marked in the Default column of Inventory, Warehouses; change it with Set as default).
• Cheetah is different: no ship-from address is asked for, because Cheetah collects from the address on your own contract. Its settings show Pickup with a note to ask Cheetah to change it. See Connect Cheetah. HFD still asks for a warehouse address, because Brainerce needs one to buy a label, but does not send it to HFD: confirm with HFD which address its drivers collect from, see Connect HFD.

The Settings icon: ship-from address and automatic labels

The Settings icon on the overview opens the carrier's settings. Two rows matter here:

• Ship-from address (or Pickup for a carrier that collects from your contract address). Shows Not set until you add one.
• Automatic labels: Off, I buy each label myself, 30 minutes after payment (recommended) or Right after payment. In the delay mode you set the number of minutes, from 1 to 1440.

Automatic buying spends your carrier balance with nobody clicking. With a prepaid carrier like EasyPost or Shippo, an empty balance means orders stop shipping and nothing tells you, so keep auto-reload on. A carrier you pay under your own contract has no balance to run dry. Brainerce never buys automatically for an order that was cancelled, refunded, collected in person, already shipped by hand, or has only digital items. A failed automatic purchase appears under Needs attention and never stops the order itself.

The carrier's settings also hold its Priority and Deliver only to these countries fields. They only matter when you have more than one carrier. See Connect Shippo or EasyPost.

What the overview does not do

• No return labels in the dashboard. There is no button to buy a return label. Return labels exist only for EasyPost, through the MCP admin tools (it is not on the public API), and the carrier account pays for them.
• No automatic address checking. Brainerce does not verify that a customer's address is real before you buy a label.
• No parcel table for merchants. The overview shows the latest parcels only.

What's next?

• Set up shipping zones and rates
• Order status and shipping

Need a hand? Email [email protected].