Select this option if you want shipping and handling to be calculated at the time of order entry rather than at the time of fulfillment.

This option also applies to back orders, and is useful for:

§      Gift orders that will ship on a future date (whether because items are back-ordered or for whatever reason). Gift notes are stored with the package.

§      Drop shipments, if you charge shipping based on actual shipping costs or number of packages.

CMS creates "virtual" packages as place holders for package information that will be used for later fulfillments. These virtual packages will be deleted once the item(s) have been fulfilled and the virtual package is no longer needed. Note, however, that some operators may be confused if they see packages on an invoice that will not be shipping.

We do not recommend you use this feature—it is preferable to use actual ship dates.

This feature was used many years ago where shipping integrations were not always possible. This should never be the case today, and you should always have shipped dates set automatically for you via one of CMS's many shipping integrations. The setting of shipped dates is fairly critical to proper system operation and accounting. If you think you need this feature, please contact us first so we can explore other alternatives with you.

If you are going to print an estimated ship date on the invoice (not recommended--see above), enter the number of days from the order date to use for the estimated date. For example, if it typically takes five days to fulfill an order, enter the number 5.

When estimating a ship date, add an extra day to the estimate for orders coming in after a specified time of day. For example, if your UPS driver picks up at 4:00 p.m., you would enter 16.

Select this option to print C.O.D. tags for every box in multiple-package C.O.D. shipments.

If you're using a barcode scanner, selecting this option saves that extra step of requesting a label. Combine it with "Best Shipping" rules for even more time savings. See Setup>Shipping>Shipping Choices>Best Shipping Rules for more information.

Enter a value to use for customs purposes for items for which you do not charge.

According to Customs, every item has a value, even those for which you don't charge; so the industry best practice is to assign a nominal value (for example, $0.50) to use for zero-priced items.