This series uses Dingli, a Patisco demo account. Every system screen and all the data shown here came from real operations in the system, including the exchanges between buyers and suppliers; they are not mock-ups. The people and dialogue are dramatized, and the illustrations are for illustration only. Screens are shown in the system's Chinese interface; Patisco is also available in English and other languages.
In the story: the day after the inspection, Friday, 10:00 a.m.
Straight out of Wuri
Velostrada's spring promotion couldn't wait for ocean freight, so this batch of chains would go by UPS express, with freight charged separately. Jonas agreed.
The problem: the chains were at Hongtai in Wuri, and Dingli was in Dajia. The old way was to have Hongtai deliver to Dajia, then have Dingli call UPS. One more truck run, one more day, and every carton gets hauled two extra times.
"Ship it straight from Hongtai," Chairman Lin said. "But the waybill has to carry our name, and the freight goes on our account."
A-Zhe nodded. Then he thought of something else: Hongtai's address was entirely in Chinese.
How it used to go
The day before a shipment used to be Hsiu-Chin's busiest day of all.
The packing list was in one Excel file and the commercial invoice in another, and the carton counts, weights and amounts had to match across both. For the UPS waybill, A-Zhe logged in to the UPS site and typed it in field by field: shipper, consignee, weight, dimensions, description. Hongtai's address had to be translated into English, then typed in all over again.
Get one postal code wrong, and the package comes back halfway through its trip. That had happened to Dingli twice.
How it goes in Patisco
Three shipping documents
Document 101｜Packing list, commercial invoice, bill of lading: When goods leave, these three are the most common documents. The packing list says what's in each carton, how many pieces and how heavy, and the other side counts against it on arrival. The commercial invoice lists the items and amounts in the shipment, and the importing country's customs calculates duty from it. The bill of lading (couriers call it a waybill) is the carrier's receipt for the goods and carries the tracking number. If the three don't match, at best the customer can't get a clean count; at worst the shipment gets stuck at customs.
In [Shipping Management], A-Zhe clicks [Add delivery order]. Three steps: choose the buyer, Velostrada; choose the chains on PI-0411 going out this time; confirm the result. Only the chains are shipping now. Everything else goes by sea, since goods can ship in batches.
The delivery order has three tabs. [Packing List] records each carton's number and contents, with the final carton marked by [Set as Tail Box…]. [Commercial Invoice] brings its items and amounts over from the PI. The two share the same data, so one can't say 48 cartons while the other says 47.
Pick the supplier as the pickup location
Next, A-Zhe opens [Ship with UPS]. The pickup location has four options: [Our company], [Supplier], [Buyer] and [Enter manually]. He picks [Supplier], Hongtai Chain.
The system fills in the English details from Hongtai's record first. Hongtai's English address had never been entered, so the fields still contain Chinese, and [Get rates] and [Create label] are both grayed out. UPS accepts English only, so the system stops it up front and won't let a bad address go out.
A-Zhe fills in the English address and leaves [Save back to this company's record (English details)] checked. Next time something ships from Hongtai, nobody has to type it again.
For the recipient, he uses this document's delivery details: Velostrada's warehouse in Hamburg. The pickup address on the waybill is Hongtai's warehouse, but the account, the payment and the company name are all still Dingli.
Get rates, create the label, schedule the pickup
[Get rates] → [Choose a service] → [Create label]. Once the waybill exists, the tracking number can be written back to the PI's [Ship Via] field. Then comes [UPS pickup]. With the pickup address set to the supplier, the UPS driver goes straight to Wuri.
Two things to note: Patisco doesn't sync UPS shipment status, so to check progress, look up the tracking number with UPS. And you need to write down the pickup confirmation number yourself.
At three on Friday afternoon, the UPS truck pulled up at Hongtai's gate. Ms. Chang posted a photo in the group: forty-eight cartons, on the truck.
Before vs. With Patisco
| Before | With Patisco | |
|---|---|---|
| Packing list and commercial invoice | Two Excel files, carton counts and amounts checked by hand | Two tabs on one delivery order, sharing the same data |
| Shipping from a supplier | Bring it back to your own warehouse, then call the courier | Set the pickup location to [Supplier] and it's collected there |
| Chinese addresses | Translate and type them yourself; a typo means a return | Chinese gets blocked, and the corrected English is saved back to the record |
| Waybill | Log in to the courier's site and type it field by field | Data comes from the PI: get rates, create the label, schedule the pickup |
A word for the boss: What's scary about shipping day isn't how busy it is. It's the three documents not matching. Wherever they don't match is exactly where customers and customs will ask you questions.
The real-world backdrop: If your company doesn't have its own UPS account, you can enable the Shino Soft discounted shipping account in the UPS integration settings, and Shino Soft bills the charges separately.