3PL Billing Overview

As a 3PL, one of the most important features included in ShipHero's WMS is our 3PL Billing capabilities. A host of different features allow you to accurately and efficiently bill your clients and capture all of the costs associated with the work you do - ensuring your retain that revenue and stay profitable.

This article will walk you through the different aspects of 3PL Billing available to you, including client profiles, product profiles, and more. 

Overview of 3PL Billing Page
Overview of Billing Profiles
Billing Reconciliation
Product Profiles
Additional Resources

Overview of the 3PL Billing Page

To get to the 3PL Billing page, log into ShipHero and navigate to 3PL Billing in the upper navigation bar.

You will be redirected to the 3PL Billing Overview page as illustrated below.

This is the best place to start when looking to do any tasks related to 3PL Billing.

This page gives you direct access to your clients and their billing profiles and billing frequency, as well as tabs along the top to navigate to bills, billing profile set up, reconciliation, reporting and exporting and product profile set up.

Overview of Billing Profiles

A billing profile is a collection of fees that can be applied to one or more customer accounts. You can create multiple billing profiles based on your needs. For example, a specific customer contract may require a billing profile to ensure that all of the necessary fees, rates and discounts are being applied consistently. It is often the best way to make sure that happens. 

How to Use Billing Profiles

There are dozens of use cases for billing profiles, so we have outlined some of the most common ones below.

1. Peak Season: A customer can only have 1 billing profile per warehouse, but you can change the billing profile as needed. For example, January to October, you use a standard billing profile but in November and December you switch the profile to “peak season billing” to capture surcharges or any other additional charges that might be related to extra storage fees or pick fees.
2. Contract Rates: Depending on the client, you may have negotiated specific fees and rates. The easiest way to capture all of these rates and ensure they are applied across the board is to build a specific billing profile and apply it to the client.
3. Different Location Costs: If a customer is in multiple warehouses, each warehouse can have their own billing profile. Profiles are not warehouse specific.
   1. Example: Customer A ships out of Warehouse East and Warehouse West. You can apply the same “standard billing” to both warehouses. Or you can use one billing profile for Warehouse East and a different one for Warehouse West.
   2. Why would you want to do this? One warehouse may do more customization work so they have additional fees in their profile, while the other warehouse may have more standard costs.

Billing Reconciliation

Billing reconciliation can take some time, but within ShipHero's 3PL billing it's easy to manage. Here are some things to note when thinking about how reconciliation works.

• The carrier invoice is an integral piece of the puzzle. The carrier invoice includes not only the rate data, but also the accessorial charges that might have been incurred.
• When reconciling a carrier bill, not all carriers will match the tracking number. Some will match an shipment ID which unfortunately does not coincide with the internal ShipHero shipment ID.
  • Example: A carrier or shipping service that uses USPS as their last mile delivery arm, there could be a mismatch based on the tracking number in the invoice versus the tracking number in our system when you attempt to reconcile.
    • However, If a customer ships using DHL eCOM, ShipHero stores the USPS tracking number and we store the Remote Shipment ID as an Alternate Tracking Number. This Alternate Tracking number shows in the Shipments Report and you will need to use that column when reconciling those types of shipments.
• It technically does not matter when you reconcile a carrier bill in relation to billing cycles. The difference will get added to the next invoice, regardless of when you do it.

NOTE: For details on how to reconcile carrier bills, please click HERE. 

Product Profiles

These are specific profiles assigned to products. A product can only have 1 profile. Fees can be specifically created to only apply to products with a certain profile.

NOTE: To create Product Profiles, please click HERE. 

Profiles can be applied to products individually or in bulk.

• To apply individually, you would use the the Product Profiles tab on the 3PL Billing screen (shown above.)
• To apply in bulk, you would use the inventory page located HERE. 

Location Types

Location types can be used to define the storage fees. These types can be created either directly in billing or ShipHero HERE.

• They are assigned to specific locations here: https://app.shiphero.com/dashboard/locations
• Assignments also be made in bulk.

Additional Resources

This is the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to 3PL Billing in ShipHero. Please use the links below to find out more about specific features and functions available to help you more efficiently capture all of the revenue you're owed from your clients.

How to Create a 3PL Client Billing Profile
How to Create Ad Hoc Charges in 3PL Billing 
Flat Fee Order Charge