FarApp's Amazon FBA Inbound Shipping Sync is a powerful and time-saving tool for our customers who use our Amazon connector and offer products Fulfilled by Amazon.

This article explains how the FBA Inbound Shipping Sync works.

Sending Your Stock to Amazon

1. You create a Transfer Order in NetSuite with line items for every SKU you want to ship to Amazon.
2. FarApp will sync this to Amazon.
3. Amazon will generate a shipping plan which says which items need to be sent to which warehouses.
4. FarApp will sync each shipment in the shipping plan back to NetSuite as a pick ticket against the transfer order in NetSuite.
5. You will pack the items into separate cartons. You will use a custom record FarApp created on the fulfillment record to indicate which carton each item is going in.
6. FarApp will sync the carton details to Amazon.
7. Amazon will generate a shipping estimate from this. Amazon will also create shipping labels and tracking numbers for each shipment.
8. FarApp will sync the labels and tracking numbers back to NetSuite and mark the the pick tickets as shipped.
9. You will then ship the cartons.
10. FarApp will sync to Amazon that the items have shipped.
11. Once Amazon has received the items, FarApp will sync the item receipts against the Transfer Order.
12. FarApp will keep syncing these partial receipts as each carton is received until the Transfer Order is marked complete.

With this workflow you only need to worry about steps 1, 5 and 9.

When a Vendor Ships Stock to Amazon on Your Behalf

1. You create a Purchase Order in NetSuite.
2. FarApp will sync this to Amazon.
3. Amazon will generate a shipping plan which says which items need to be sent to which warehouses.
4. FarApp will either A) sync the Shipment details to custom fields on the Purchase Order of your choosing, B) send the Shipment details to you as an email.
5. You will need to forward this information to your vendor.
6. Based on the configurable criteria, FarApp will sync the carton details (that you vendor communicates to you after they have shipped the items) to Amazon. Please open a case with us to discuss this step and your configurable criteria.
7. Once Amazon has received the items, FarApp will sync the item receipts against the Purchase Order.
8. FarApp will keep syncing these partial receipts as each carton is received until the Purchase Order is marked complete.

With this workflow you only need to worry about steps 1, 5 and 6.

Setup

If you would like to set up an Amazon FBA Inbound Shipping sync, please open a ticket with us. We will assist you in the set up. It will help us if you can answer these questions on the ticket:

1. FarApp will need to create custom records that will show up as a custom sublist of your fulfillment record in NetSuite that will be used to input carton contents for each package. Is it ok for us to create this?
2. Will you be using case-packed shipments? If so, you'll need a custom transaction column field of type integer visible on fulfillments and purchase orders to indicate for a given line item on a transfer order or purchase orders, how many of the item there will be per case. If setting up the field, please provide us the field ID.
3. Will you be using Amazon-partnered carriers? Usually people will use partnered carriers because it's cheaper.
4. What is your originating address for the shipments (i.e. where you'll will be sending the shipments from). This is usually the address for your warehouse and is just a fixed value we'll map for you.
5. Will you be doing both small-parcel as well as LTL shipments? If doing both, we'll need to set up a transaction body field of type checkbox visible on fulfillments and purchase orders indicating whether a shipment is small-parcel or LTL and let us know the field ID.
6. Please create a folder in your NetSuite File Cabinet where we should put the label files and let us know the folder ID.
7. Please create a transaction body field of type document visible on fulfillments and purchase orders where we should put the label and let us know the field ID.
8. Once ready, please create a transfer order to use for testing and provide us with the internal ID.

FAQs

• Does FarApp support LTL (Less Than Load, or relatively small) and small parcel?
• Yes.

• Which carriers does FarApp support for FBA Inbound Shipping? 
• FarApp support Amazon's preferred carriers and well as using your own carrier.

• How will we be able to see where inventory is, what's in our warehouse, what's already made it to Amazon, what's still en route, etc?
• When you created the inventory transfer (either a Transfer Order or Purchase Order), the inventory was still in your warehouse. Once the inventory transfer is shipped, it takes the inventory out of available quantity in your warehouse but doesn't add it to the Amazon warehouse yet. Once the receipt is posted against the inventory transfer, the inventory is made available in your Amazon FBA warehouse location in NetSuite In-between, when the transfer is shipped and the receipt is posted, NetSuite will show that inventory as "In Transit" status. It’s still carried on the books as an asset, but it won’t be available at any location. When looking at a specific item you have shipped, NetSuite will show the quantity available at each location as well as that quantity that is in transit. You will also be able to look at the open Transfer or Purchase Order in the relevant orders screen. In-transit inventory should also be counted towards things like your reorder-point, so your NetSuite shouldn't generate further POs just because the inventory isn’t in a particular location yet.