Zoho Inventory

AfterShip Integration

AfterShip is a third-party shipment tracking service which integrates with Zoho Inventory to fetch and update the real-time status of your shipments from the respective carriers. This serves as alternative to the manual method of tracking shipments for medium to large businesses that ships thousands of orders each day.

This feature is supported only for selective pricing plans in Zoho Inventory and can be used to track Transfer Orders, Manual Shipments and Puchase Receives.

Benefits of integrating with AfterShip:


How it works

AfterShip workflow image

Demo Video


Setting up the integration

  1. Sign in to your Zoho Inventory account.

  2. Go to Settings > Integrations > Shipping.

  3. Zoho Inventory provides two ways to integrate with AfterShip:

    Activating AfterShip Integration

1. Use our readily available account

Note: To comply with the new SCC regulations, this option is not available for customers in the European Union.

Note: Zoho Inventory only shares the tracking ID, carrier name and shipper account number (for selective carriers) with AfterShip. In this case, you will receive all the shipment related emails through Zoho Inventory and not AfterShip. This will help safeguard the personally identifiable information of your clients.

2. Connect your AfterShip account

Already with AfterShip? It just takes a couple more steps to get started.

Benefits:

Note: If you choose to integrate your AfterShip account, the charges incurred will be settled by you as a direct payment to AfterShip.

Warning: Zoho Inventory shares yours and your customers' contact information, the shipment details as well as your shipper account number (for selective carries) with AfterShip. In this case, both you and your customer will receive all shipment related updates directly from AfterShip. Duly note that Zoho Inventory is not responsible for any information shared post integrating with AfterShip.


Tracking a Shipment

Note: You can only track manual shipments using this integration.

To track a shipment in Zoho Inventory:

  1. Open a confirmed sales order.

  2. Go to Create and select Ship > Ship Manually. A New Shipment page opens up. 

  3. Check the option that says ‘Track this shipment in real-time?'. Doing so will populate all the AfterShip supported professional carriers. 

    Option to enable tracking for a manual shipment
  4. Find and select the appropriate carrier and enter the Tracking ID provided by them.

  5. Specify the contact details of the customer to which the status notifications should be sent.

  6. Fill up any other essential details and hit Save to create a package slip with the tracking ID and shipment details.

If you would like to enable tracking for an existing shipment: 

  1. Open an untracked shipment.

  2. Click on the Enable real-time tracking option.

    Option to enable tracking for a manual shipment

  3. Provide the tracking details.

  4. Specify the contact details of the customer to which the status notifications should be sent.

    Pop-up window to enter the tracking details

  5. Click Save to start tracking the shipment.


Viewing the Shipment Status

To view the status of a tracked shipment:

  1. Open a tracked shipment.

  2. Click the View Tracking Status option. (Note: The same button appears as Shipment Timeline for shipments that are marked as Delivered.)

  3. A tab opens on the right where you can view the current location and the complete timeline of a shipment.

    A slider tab populating real time shipment status

  4. You can also click the Tracking URL to view the status of your shipment directly on the carrier’s website.

    Tracking URL

Note: When the shipment is delivered, AfterShip automatically marks the status as Delivered in Zoho Inventory. If the status is not updated due to some unexpected reasons, you can manually mark it as Delivered.


Updating/Deleting the AfterShip Tracking Details

You can update or remove the AfterShip tracking details such as Carrier, Tracking Number, Shipper Account Number, and Tracking Key for your shipped packages in Zoho Inventory.

To edit the tracking details:

  1. Go to the Packages module on the left sidebar.

  2. Open an AfterShip tracked shipment under Shipped Packages.

  3. Click the Pencil icon next to the Shipment In Transit option.

  4. Update the tracking details and click Save.

  5. To delete the tracking details, click the Trash Can icon.

    Update/Delete AfterShip Tracking Details

Insight: The changes made will be saved in your AfterShip account on top of the existing tracking details. If needed, you can remove the previous tracking information from your AfterShip account directly. This is not required if you are using the common AfterShip account.


Deactivating the integration

To deactivate this integration, 

  1. Go to Settings > Integrations > Shipping.
  2. Under AfterShip, click the Deactivate button. Option to disable AfterShip integration

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