In December 2008, in preparation for the FedEx and UPS rate increase, we decided to rebuild the rate shopping form. Everyone must admit that this facelift was overdue. The old rate shopping form was too small and too crowded. The new form, as shown below, has larger fonts, a somewhat larger footprint and, in our opinion, much easier to navigate.
The above image illustrates how this form will appear when you first open it.
I have added bullets to the above image so that I can easily explain the buttons that appear on the form as you will see it when it first appears.
(A) These first five buttons will help you to navigate to where you will do most of your work. As you can see, all of these buttons, except the first button are disabled. They will remain disabled until you actually shop for rates.
(B) These five buttons will take you to messages pages that will explain carrier services, restrictions, etc. These buttons are all disabled as well since there is nothing known until after you shop for a rate. Some, or all, of these buttons will be enabled after you shop for rates and information needs to be reviewed for a particular set of rates.
(C) This is the help button that talks a bit about this form and also links you over to this web-based help article.
(D) The 'Find Postal Code' button will open a special form where you can select a postal code based on the state and city where you will be creating a shipment.
(E) The 'Zip Options' button can be used after a postal code is entered in the 'Destination Postal Code' box. This zip options form that will appear when you click on this button will show you any surcharges that will apply to this postal code and the availability of services.
(F) You can click on this button to open a form where you can choose a box size from a list of boxes in the Dexter system. You can change the list of boxes to only show the boxes that you sell at your business.
(G) The 'Insurance Fees' button will open a form showing the insurance rates for a package that you have shopped. Nothing will appear if there is no declared value or if you have not shopped for a rate yet.
(H) These buttons are for doing your rate shopping after filling out the information necessary for Dexter to be able to get you rates. The 'All button will shop for rates for all available carriers.
(I) After shopping for rates, you can click on this button to print out a listing of the rates that Dexter has gathered for you, and all of the pertinent information regarding the package and all restrictions and messages that Dexter gathered.
(J) After you are done with a set of rates that Dexter has gathered for you, you should click on this button to clear the screen for the next rate shopping process.
After clicking the 'All' button, Dexter will enable all of the buttons at the top that can now be used. The 'Set Surcharges' and 'Manifest' buttons are still disabled since these areas are only available after you choose a rate from the various rates Dexter has gathered for you.
The image above shows the 'Rates' page where you can choose a service for the client you are working with. Now, you can get your rate and then go no further. Or, you can click on the diskette button to the right of the service your client wants to use to see the surcharges area where you can add 'value-added' services available for the service chosen. I will select UPS 2 Day Air to see what happens.
This will take you to the surcharges area where you can add value-added services by checking the check box in the button list and thus automatically moving the item to the top list. You can also set fees for labor, box, other if you want to do this. And, you can have Dexter calculate tax if you have set taxes into the Specific Options area of Dexter.
As you can see, the last of the disabled buttons at the top are now available. You can now manifest this package if you want to do this. I will now open the manifesting area so you can see how this works. I will also spend a little time explaining all of this since I have spent little time doing so in the past.
On the manifest page, you can set the sender's information, the destination information, and then you can manifest the package. Now, this does not do anything as far as connecting up to UPS, FedEx, or anyone. It is just a way for you to keep track of shipments in house. To manifest, you do not have to add shipper or destination information, but it does help keep track of who shipped and to whom it was shipped. I will add the shipper and destination in this article so you can see how it is done.
First, click on the 'Sender' button to open a form where you can either select a preexisting shipper, or you can add a new shipper to Dexter.
After you click on the 'Sender' button, a form will appear like the one shown above. At this point, you can choose a sender from the list, if in fact they are on the list. If you select a sender from the list, their information will appear in the area below. You can edit this information, or you can click on thei 'Use Above Customer' button to use the current addressing information for your client. The 'Use Above Customer' button will become available after someone is selected from the list. If, on the other hand, the client is not on the list, you can add them to the list by filling out the information in the 'Add a New Customer' area. After you have filled out the information in the 'Add a New Customer' area, you should select the new client from the peach list, and then click on the 'Use Above Customer' button to move them to the manifesting form.
After you have added the sender, you should add the destination in the same manner, with a bit of difference due to Dexter's use of common destination which will be explained below.
When the destination form appears a message may appear stating that there are no destinations associated with this sender. Dexter does a good job of keeping track of destinations for a particular sender and will only show those destinations to the postal code that was initially shopped for rates. This form should be filled out in the same manner as with the sender form. You can, however, set a particular destination as a common destination by checking the common destination check box. The reason you would do this is if the destination in question is one that many different senders might use, i.e., retail return establishments, associations that might be shipped to by many different senders.
Please take note that when you are adding a new destination, Dexter will not allow you to change the zip code since the package you are working with is set to be shipped to a specific zip code and thus cannot be changed.
After you have set the sender and destination (which is optional by the way), you can manifest the shipment. There are two buttons associated with manifesting. The top button will actually manifest the shipment, the second button will not. The second button is there to reenter the manifesting form if you need to go back there without remanifesting the package.
When you click on the 'Manifest This Shipment' button, a form will open showing this package as a manifested shipment. I will do this and then review the manifesting form below.
As you can see from the image above, the first item in the list, item 30-12-2291, is the package we just manifested. You can review all of the unshipped items in this list by selecting any of them in the list. You can also change the listing to shows different types of records between whatever dates you choose. For this article, we will just stick with the unshipped records. Now, when the carriers representative (postman, UPS driver) takes all of the unshipped packages away from your business, you should do the End of Day for that carrier. Thus, those shipments that are picked up will be removed from this list. I will discuss this farther down this article.
Let's navigate using the buttons at the top of this form. I will now click on the 'Costs, Reporting & End of Day' button.
On this page you will see the same costs information as shown on the rate shopping surcharges page. In addition, there are a number of reports available, customer/destination information and shipping labels area, and a trach can button where you can delete one or all records from the list we were looking at in the previous step.
The area with the title 'End of Day Reporting' is used to set records as having been sent. What you would do is set the first box showing the carrier whose representative picked up the carrier's packages, the date when the packages were picked up and the time. Then, you can click on the airplane button to set the appropriate records as having been picked up. On the 'Carrier, Insurance, Pertinent Dates & Tracking' page, the End of Day process will set the date and time when a package was shipped. You can reverse this process for a particular package by removing the date and time shipped for that package.
Now, I will click on the 'Carrier, Insurance, Pertinent Dates & Tracking' button to move on to the next area.
As you can see, you can set a package's arrival date and time and keep the tracking number for the package here.
I think that nothing else needs to be said about this wonderful set of forms.
Hope this helps!