Hello all. We have been trying to figure out the best way to capture our freight expenses by the order. I was hoping others who have dealt with freight expenses would have some advice. Where have you all recorded this data? Do you tie it to a GL account perhaps?
Edit: Thanks everyone for the great responses!
We use a UD field on the AP Invoice line to record the packing slip number pertaining to the AP Freight invoice. This number is typically on the Freight Invoice.
After that it is only a matter of a BAQ to organize the data in any shape or form you like. We have created a dashboard for the user to check freight on past shipments. This helps in future pricing decisions and also checking if duplicate freight invoices.
Vinay Kamboj
We use a UD field in the OrderRel table. Since the shipping is driven by the release required date. In our use, the sales agent is responsible to contact the shipping companies and with the knowledge of the Volume and weight (from other UD fields ) of the order they get the pricing. This price is then added into the release.
For us, using the Misc charge in the line is often useless, as one line can have multiple release dates, and the shipping charges can change in time (gas prices etc… )
Pierre
Hi Drew,
We use miscellaneous charge on the sales order. The misc charge can be tied to GL control.
Nancy
Hi, we are looking at this.we have not got any integrations but the at the point of order be able to get the shipping costs from a nominated provider. E.g. the sales order entry person creates the order picks the courier via the ship via and gets a cost for shipment?
@Nancy_Hoyt , this is a good solution for the freight we are charging the customer. Do you have any suggestions on how to document our freight expense tied to the order? We ship our orders prepaid and charge our customers back from the freight. We need a way to document the charge to customer which needs to show on the invoice and a way to document the actual cost we were quoted by carrier which shouldn’t show on invoice.
One solution I made for a client involved some UD fields to denote FreeFreight thresholds. If the free freight threshold wasnt exceed we took all the charges from the shipment (straight from Manifest) and applied them to an Order Misc Charge.
At one site they needed to track differeences between the estimated and actual freight.
Since invoices for freight often would arrive from the shipping company several weeks after the sales order was entered in E10.
Est freight would be entered as a misc charge and Act freight was entered on a UD table/form.
UD table was linked to the original Order table and some custom reporting was added.
Can’t remember why they used a UD table, only that they had some reason.
But… I’m thinking might be able to accomplish everything with UD field(s) right on the misc charge records…simple?
Hi Drew,
Reading your question, I looked at our system to determine what our people were doing for adjusting the freight costs. Apparently the solution I mentioned regarding using miscellaneous charge for freight on order line is only getting done about 10% of the time 
This method is apparently used when order entry personnel are certain of the freight cost.
(Funny how E10 help helps me figure out more what is actually happening day to day in system 
)
So I spoke with our AR guy who is doing the processing. Apparently due to the same concern you have “what about when actual freight costs aren’t exactly known at order entry” , we are using another method to deal with it, that isn’t tight with system associations. The user is noting it in a misc invoice description. (I think I like Chris and Bruce’s use of UD over this for sure.)
I have seen occasional use of addition of a non quantity bearing part, Price Adjustment as a sales order line. We do not use this for freight price changes, however, but I thought I’d put it out there as another option.
Nancy
Thank you for your help. After thinking through the suggestions you presented we think UD fields might be the right solution for us. Have either of you found a way to set up a UD field that will hit a GL? We’re really trying to avoid having to do Journal Entries.
What about using Miscellaneous charges.
If you want a UD field to hit the GL you would have to change the posting rules for the document. You would be better off using Misc Charges. That will hit the GL if a control is set up.
Charlie
I agree with others that the Misc Charges in Customer Shipment Entry would be the way to go with this.
You simply need to set up Charge Codes (according to Technical Details) in the MiscChrg Master File. This entry should then be printed on the Packing Slip and transferred over to invoice processing.
It’s pretty neat because you can do a dollar amount or a percentage of a dollar amount. It will also charge tax if you flag it to do so.
I think this is your solution!
We use Misc Charges a lot in AR and AP. However we do not allow our shippers to add anything to packing slip. All charges are entered on The Sales Order either at the Header or Line level as applicable. These charges then are charged in the invoice when it is generated.
Vinay Kamboj
