A carrier is a business partner. As such it is identified in the business partner (BP) table as well as in the carriers table.
Use this function to create, view and update information specific to a carrier or related tot the Business partner.

This function can be accessed directly from the menu or from BP management by clicking the Carriers specific action.

Prerequisite

SEEREFERTTO Refer to documentation Implementation

Screen management

A carrier is created with the help of a maximum of seven tabs.

These four tabs are common to both the BP and Carrier records:

  • Identity
  • Addresses
  • Bank ID no
  • Contact.

The information on this tabs is taken from the BP record, if created.
Any modification made on one or more of these tabs is automatically saved in the BP table. 

Header

This screen is used to enter the carrier code to be created or searched.

An important number of carriers can be included in a commercial base and it can be difficult to remember the key of each recording.
In order to launch a quick search on a Carrier record, click Search from the Actions icon in the Carrier field.
Different searches can be performed:

  • Search on the start of the company name.
  • Search on each postal code start.
  • Search on each town/city name start.
  • Cumulated search on each search field.

The results of each search are displayed in the lower part of the screen. A search is renewed when tabulating on one of these criteria.

Tab Identity

Use this section to enter the identification data for the business partner such as selecting roles and entering role-specific details.

Select the Service provider checkbox to access the Service provider info from the Actions panel, Functions menu. The term Service provider refers to an after-sales service provider you can call when all internal customer support employees are unavailable.

Select the Service caller (Order-giver) checkbox to access the Order-giver info from the Actions panel, Functions menu. The term Order-giver groups all customers for the account for which customer support services are carried out. That is, service requests that are processed for customers of our customers.

EU VAT ID validation

You can interactively validate the EU VAT no. by selecting the EU VAT ID validation icon.

Note: This includes validating GB VAT numbers.

A message box displays with the validation results. The exact content varies depending on the check result and web service used.

  • If the validation is successful, you receive a confirmation message and the Validation check box is selected.
  • If the validation failed, you receive a message that displays the reason for the failure.
  • If the validation could not be completed (for example, if only the VAT number was validated and not the address), you have the option to accept the results as valid or not. If you select Yes, the Validation check box is selected.

Note: The validation results for EU VAT IDs are stored in a table. GB VAT numbers are not stored.

If a previously-validated VAT number is modified, the Validation check box is cleared.

Validation levels:

A Qualified validation verifies the EU VAT no. and company name and address. All data must be valid.

An Unqualified or simple validation only verifies the EU VAT no. Note that the EU validation web service performs only unqualified validations.

Address management:

Results are recorded with the original address code.

For the main EU VAT no., the standard company address is used.

You can manually revalidate VAT numbers using the EU VAT ID revalidation function (EVCBAT).

Note: This field is only available if a web service is identified by the EVCSERVICE – Webservice for EU VAT ID parameter (CPT chapter, VAT group) and the sender's EU VAT number is set by the EVCCOMPANY—EU VAT ID source company parameter (CPT chapter, VAT group)

Tab Addresses

Use this section to enter the business partner addresses. You need to enter at least one address. When several addresses are linked to the same BP, you must define one of them as the default address. In creation mode, the first address entered is the one suggested by default.

When entering the post code, an automatic control can be performed and the town entered depending on the settings of the CTY - Nonexistent city alert, POSCOD - Nonexistent postal code alert, and POSCODCPY - Multi-country post codes parameters (SUP chapter, INT group).

Tab Controls

This tab is used to enter the information related to the carrier pricing method.

For the carrier pricing elements to be considered in the sales flow, you need to activate the Price list management. This does not prevent the definition of the price list conditions for the carrier. This flag is only used to activate or not the application of carrier price list conditions.

The carrier price lists can be defined depending on a weight unit and a volume unit. If these two units are entered, you will need to enter a weight/volume coefficient.
The volume unit and the coefficient are then used to determine the weight range that is used to determine the price list for the volumes. The weight range used will then be equal to the volume * the coefficient (volumetric weight). If the data used in the carrier calculation both includes weights and volumes and if the weight has been defined, the system considers the highest weight between weight and volumetric weight as the calculation basis.

Free freight thresholds can be set up. It is possible to set up five different price breaks. These ranges are compared to the free delivery range assigned to each customer to determine the carrier free delivery threshold ( Sales executive tab in the customer record, Freight invoicing).

You can determine fixed prices. These price lists are characterised by a fixed amount that will always be applied. You can apply an increase by weight range and a rounding element associated with the range to this base amount.

Example
Let's consider a fixed price list expressed as follows:
100 EUR as a fixed amount + 10 EUR by 10 KG.
If you need to transport 110KG, the carrier price list will be 210 EUR (100 EUR + (11 lots of 10 KG) * 10 EUR).

Use the screen block Variable price list setup to define weight ranges that will be used in price lists by region (Caution: no break should exist in the ranges definition). In this type of pricing, the number of ranges is determined from the initial weight decreased by the minimum limit for the range that is (weight- start range) / range value.

Example :
A weight range has been defined as follows:

Up to

Range

Rounding

100

5

Range <

200

10

Range <

The number of ranges for 150 KG will be (150-100) / 10 = 5 ranges.

Tab Region

Use this tab to define regions.
You can associate to the region a country code, a post code and potentially the shipping site corresponding to the site for the pick up of the goods by the carrier.
The post code is not mandatory and can be incomplete. If it is not entered, all post codes are considered. If only part of it is entered, all the post codes that start with this root are considered.

You can also group together several post codes (or post code roots) within a single region. When two identical post codes are entered for a pair (site, country), a warning message opens.

Once the regions have been set up, you must define the price lists for the regions. The determination of a region code is made alphabetically on this list with regard to the ship-to address.

The SPC activity code gives the number of regions that can be set up.

Tab Price lists

Use this tab to define the freight charges by entering the Fixed costs and By range columns for the weight ranges defined in the Variable price list setup in the Management tab. To enter the region grid, click the required region in the Region table and view the associated freight charges. The selected region displays in red, the region as well as the currency and the weight unit display in the section at the top of the Price list tab.

The BPY activity code gives the number of regions that can be defined in this tab.

Tab Bank ID

Use this section to record bank details and associated paying banks. The entry format of the Bank account no. depends on the country where the bank is based.

The information related to international transfers can be accessed in record mode, usually the Intermediate bank. An intermediary bank is often used in commercial relationships with non-western countries at the request of the BP or issuing bank.

If the conditions are met, the Enter bank details window is automatically displayed when leaving the Country field. In this window, you can enter the bank details in your local format.
SEEREFERTTO. Please refer to Enter bank details window documentation for more information.

Tab Contacts

In this section, you can list the contact persons for the BP in the Contacts table. You also need to indicate the default contact.

To add a new contact:

  • Select an existing Contact (relationship) 
  • Create a new contact:
    - Enter a code
    - Add details: the code is automatically created when saving the record.
    In both cases, the contact is automatically recorded in the Contacts table.

The management of contacts, from the Contacts function, ensures that each individual record is unique.  A contact with a particular role can be recorded as one Contact amongst many business partners. Based on the record of one contact, you can create relationships across records, provided that they have a Contact section.

SEEINFO A contact can only be recorded as a person or individual. Only identification information such as the last name, first name, date of birth are common to the contact (relationship) record and to the details entered at the general contact level.
Other information such as the address, email address, landline number and fax number are managed separately between the relationship contact and each one of his/her contacts. At the 'relationship' contact level, the information is considered as being personal; at the general contact level, the information is considered as being professional
. 

SEEREFERTTO For further examples, see the documentation of the Contacts function.

Reports

By default, the following reports are associated with this function :

  BPCARRIER : Carrier listing

This can be changed using a different setup.

Specific Buttons

Simulation

Use this action to run simulations of the carrier freight charge calculation and check the consistency of the setup. It returns the calculated total amount and also describes the different stages in the calculation, as the influence and determination of ranges in this calculation.
This function is therefore used to finalise the carrier pricing.

SEEINFO  Notes:

  • In the case of pricing by region, you must specify the post code to perform a search on the region code.
  • The Order or shipping amount field is used to simulate the application of the Free freight threshold in the Management tab.

Error messages

In addition to the generic error messages, the following messages can appear during the entry :

The error messages carried by the tabs that are common to both the BP management and the carrier management are described in the Business partners documentation.

Change In Progress on another workstation

This message is displayed after the activation of the modification button when this carrier is being modified elsewhere using one of the business partner management functions - customers, suppliers, sales representatives or factor.

Select a region

This message is displayed when you enter the Price list tab without selecting a region first.

Range incompatible with the previous line.

This message is displayed when you enter a weight range in the Management tab lower than the previous line.

Range incompatible with the next line

This message is displayed when you enter a weight range in the Management tab greater than the next line.

Tables used

SEEREFERTTO Refer to documentation Implementation