DEV Community

Cover image for Generating Carrier Labels, BOLs, and Customs Forms Straight from Business Central
Insight_Works
Insight_Works

Posted on

Generating Carrier Labels, BOLs, and Customs Forms Straight from Business Central

A shipping supervisor prints a packing list in one system, opens a separate portal to create carrier labels, then keys customs details into a third platform that will not share data with either. By the end of the day the same shipment information has been entered several times in several places, and no one is fully confident the international order's HS codes match the inventory master.

For manufacturers and distributors running orders across multiple carriers and international destinations, that fragmented process is the default, and it carries real cost: slower shipments, billing disputes, customs delays, and errors introduced during repeated data entry. Dynamic Ship pulls every shipping document, carrier labels, bills of lading, packing slips, and customs forms, out of Business Central instead, with no external portals and no re-entry.

Why do customs forms so often end up with the wrong HS codes?

Manual entry is the usual culprit. When someone retypes HS codes, declared values, and country of origin into a separate form, transcription errors and stale figures creep in. Pulling those fields straight from the item master keeps customs data matched to inventory data, because both come from one source rather than a shipper's memory or a copied spreadsheet.

What actually happens when you open a sales order to ship it?

The tool reads everything it needs from your records. Package dimensions and weights come from item records; addresses, shipping preferences, and service levels default from your configuration. You pick a carrier and service, and it prints a carrier-compliant label to any local, network, or cloud printer, plus a bill of lading built from the same data for LTL or FTL freight.

How does international shipping get simpler?

For shipments to Canada, Mexico, or the EU, HS codes, country of origin, declared value, and weight flow from the item master into the customs card, then transmit electronically to the carrier when the label prints. FedEx, DHL, and UPS receive complete data, so shipments clear with fewer holds and no single in-house customs expert is required.

Can the system stop the wrong item from being packed?

Yes. Shippers scan items as they pack and it verifies the contents against the sales order in the same window. If someone reaches for the wrong item, the check flags it before the box leaves the dock. That is the difference between catching an error at the bench and hearing about it later as a chargeback.

What changes day to day once shipping lives in Business Central?

The shipping portal drops out of the routine entirely. Your team stays in Business Central from order receipt to shipment confirmation, with no switching systems, no re-entry, and no second-guessing whether a customs form is complete. Over time the savings compound: fewer lost-shipment tickets, fewer customs delays, fewer billing disputes, and fewer returns caused by packing mistakes.

Documents as outputs, not re-entry

None of this is a bolt-on that phones home to an outside system. Dynamic Ship treats shipping documents as outputs from data you already own, which is what shipping inside Business Central should mean.

Disclaimer: This content is shared for informational purposes and is not promotional.

Read the full blog

Top comments (0)