Freight and Quick Ship errors
When Epicor is connected to a manifest system such as Insite’s Quick Ship, Freight on a pack sends it to the carrier, and the carrier’s answer (tracking number or error) comes back to Epicor. Most freighting problems are data problems on the pack, the ship via or the customer, reported in the carrier’s words. This page covers getting a stuck pack back, and how to read the errors.
A freighted pack that won’t unfreight
Section titled “A freighted pack that won’t unfreight”Symptom: a pack is Freighted (or shows EM0270: Invalid Shipment Number when you try to work
with it), and Unfreight fails, so you can’t reopen it to change lines.
Cause: on a manifest-enabled workstation, every status change on the pack is sent to the manifest system. If the manifest no longer recognises the shipment, the change is rejected and the pack can’t move.
Fix: make the status changes from a workstation that isn’t connected to the manifest, so Epicor doesn’t try to talk to the carrier:
- Switch to a workstation whose manifest Enabled box is clear (check in Workstation Maintenance). If every workstation is enabled, temporarily clear Enabled on one, save, and switch to it (in Classic, re-select it with Options > Change Workstation).
- Open the pack in Customer Shipment Entry.
- Enter a stage name and use Stage to move the pack to Staged.
- Open Stage Ship Confirm Entry, select the pack and choose Unstage. Refresh; the pack shows Closed.
- Back in Customer Shipment Entry, clear the stage name and save, then Open the pack.
- Make your changes, close the pack and freight it again from a manifest workstation (or mark it shipped if it has already gone).
- If you disabled a workstation in step 1, enable it again.
Reading freighting errors
Section titled “Reading freighting errors”The carrier and manifest return hundreds of distinct messages, but they fall into a handful of groups. Start by working out which group you’re in; the fix is usually on the pack’s Billing or Manifest details, the ship via code, or the customer record.
| Category | Typical wording | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| Account and billing | “Account not found”, “Invalid payment type”, “payor’s account number is invalid”, “Missing billing method for collect or third party” | The pack’s billing tab: billing type, third-party or collect account number and address. A common cause is a mismatch such as a FedEx billing type on a UPS ship via. A customer on credit hold can also trigger it |
| Service not available | “The selected service is not available from the origin to the destination”, “not supported for the destination” | The ship via code. Pick a service that serves that route, country or address type |
| Address data | “Invalid recipient postal code format”, “Address not found”, “Shipment address country is null” | Customer or ship-to record: postal code, state and country must agree and match the country’s format |
| Residential and home delivery | “Designated as residential but qualifies for home delivery” | Use a home-delivery ship via, or clear Residential Delivery on the pack |
| International paperwork | Duties payor errors, “Total commodities weight is greater than package weight”, missing tariff or origin codes | Duty/tax payor on international ship vias, part weights, and the part’s customs data (Schedule B and trade-agreement codes) |
| Hazmat | “Invalid hazardous commodity packaging units” | Hazmat group on the manifest’s product record and the container type’s commodity details |
| Ship code setup | Missing elements, declared value or signature errors | The ship via/ship code needs the matching accessorial (declared value, signature type, APO/FPO settings) set up in the manifest |
| Workstation and licensing | “Invalid workstation key”, “not licensed for rate shopping” | The manifest workstation code must match the Epicor workstation ID. Licensing messages need your manifest vendor |
| Test environment limits | Intermittent “unable to obtain rates”, can’t void or unfreight | Carrier test systems are flaky and some actions (such as voiding with UPS) aren’t supported there. Retry, or test in production with care |
Two habits make these much rarer:
- Validate at order entry. Most billing and service errors come from choices made on the sales order. A BPM that checks the ship via and billing type combination on the order release stops them before shipping sees them. See Order to shipment.
- Fix the source record, then recreate the pack. A pack copies customer and order details when it’s created. Correcting the customer record doesn’t fix an existing pack; either edit the pack too or delete and recreate it.
For the exact meaning of a specific message, the manifest vendor’s documentation (credited below) is the reference.
Related pages
Section titled “Related pages”Sources
This page is written in our own words. It was informed by: