What is Spot Rating?

Spot rating enables the Sender to enter a custom rate for a shipment. For example, if a shipper has pre-negotiated a set rate with a supported carrier for a particular type of shipment, the user can simply enter this rate in a field on the Warehouse screen. Parcel uses this rate to calculate the charges for the shipment. The charges for the shipment are redistributed using the provided spot rate. This redistribution is based on the ratio of package-weight to shipment-weight.

Spot rating is supported for the following (US domestic only) carriers in Parcel:

•Federal Express (FedEx)

•United Parcel Service (UPS)

•United States Postal Service (USPS)

Configuring Spot Rating involves the following procedures:

1.Enabling spot rating when configuring a carrier for which spot rating is supported.

2.Assigning the Spot Rating module to a Group so that this module can, in turn, be assigned to specific Roles and Users.

Enabling Spot Rating

To enable Spot Rating:

1.From the System menu, select Settings > Locations.

2.In the Web Admin tool (left panel), select a carrier to configure that supports Spot Rating (see list above).

3.Add the carrier if it is not currently configured or select a configured carrier, and then select Shipper Defaults.

4.On the Shipper Defaults screen, select the Defaults tab, and then activate (check) the Spot Rating check box.

5.Click [SHIP] to save your settings.

For a user assigned to a Group whose roles include Spot Rating (see following procedure), the Spot Rating field now appears in the lower right corner when processing a shipment with the carrier(s) for which Spot Rating was configured.

Assigning the Spot Rating module

To assign the Spot Rating module to a Group:

1.From the System menu, select User Accounts > Groups.

2.Select or create the Group to which you want to add the Spot Rating module, and then click [VIEW] or [ADD].

3.On the groups screen, select the Spot Rating module in the Denied Modules list and click the right arrow  to add it to the Assigned Modules list, and then click [UPDATE] or [SAVE] (depending on whether you are adding this module to an existing group or creating a new group with this module assigned to it).

4.Add any users whom you want to see the Spot Rating field on the Warehouse screen to the Group to which you assigned the Spot Rating module.

For more information on adding a Module to a Group and assigning users to a group, see the user management Help topics under Menus > System > User Accounts.

Using Spot Rating

When a user belonging to the Spot Rating group creates a shipment on the Warehouse screen, he or she can enter a dollar amount in the Spot Rating field before clicking [SHIP], and Parcel will then use this amount as the Rate for the shipment.