Setup Transport Charging Guide

This guide provides the information required for setting up automated Transport Charging.

- 1.1 Customers Over-ride of Charges
- 1.2 Diagram of the Charging Process
2 The Process
- 2.1 Countries / Postcodes
- 2.2 Delivery Area
3 Setup Requirements
4 Summary

Once you understand the process it is relatively simple but it is extremely important to be set up correctly at each stage to work as expected.

Customers Over-ride of Charges

Charges, Charge Bands and other associated settings that are set up against specific Customers override the general Charges, Charge Bands and Delivery Areas,

See the View/Edit Customer Detail page for more information on setting up specific charges for a Customer.

Diagram of the Charging Process

Below is a simplified diagram of the general Transport Charging Process.

The Process

When deliveries enter Vision Distribution (either automatically via Vision Warehousing or entered manually in Vision Distribution), the system will scan the Country Code and the Postcode fields.

All deliveries must contain the following fields for charging lookup to work.

Country Code
Postcode

Using those fields the system will determine:

The Postal Area

The Delivery Areas describe when a Delivery should be considered by the Case or by the Pallet, who will deliver the goods and what the charges should be, using the information within Delivery Depots.

Country / Postcode

The Country will define whether to use postcodes, if not then the country defines the delivery area directly.

Postcodes will define which postal area to use.

Postal Area

Defines which delivery area to use.

You can have many Postal Areas using a single delivery area.

Delivery Area

Based on the customer's source site, this defines the following.

Whether this is a case or pallet delivery
Delivery depot
Charge Band to use for standard charging
What the standard delivery days are

Countries / Postcodes

Based on the country setup, this will determine whether the system will use the country to lookup the delivery area or to look at the postal areas to determine the area.

If postcodes are in use then the system will check the postcode table for a partial or full match.

You can have as many Postal Areas as you need.
For more information please see the Add/Edit Country and Add/Edit Postal Areas pages.

Delivery Area

The Delivery Area, once identified, contains information about lead times, workdays, the depot's goods will be delivered to and charging.

You choose which Charge Band is used for Case and Pallet charging.
You can have as many Delivery Areas as you need.
For more information see the Add/Edit Delivery Area page.
The Charge Band screen allows you to set up as many sequential charging bands as you need.
- You set up both Case and Pallet charging under the same Charge Bands screens.
- You can have as many Charge Bands as you need.
- For more information see the Add/Edit Charge Band page.

Setup Requirements

Step 1 - Setup Charge Bands

Charge Bands

Charge Bands work the same regardless of where they are used.
- If you are using Case and Pallet Charging, you need to set up Charge Bands for both.
- You do not define whether a Charge Band will be used for Case or Pallet Charging when you create it.
  - It is defined when you add the Charge Band to either Case or Pallet in the Delivery Area.
Often each Delivery Area (see below) groups Postal Areas (also see below) together with a different Charge Band on each so that you can charge differently depending on where the goods are being shipped.
You can create as many Charge Bands as you need.
For more information please see the Add/Edit Charge Band page.

Step 2 - Setup Delivery Areas

Delivery Areas can be based on a geographical area (but they do not have to be).
- For example, you might need to set up a Delivery Area just to deal with a specific product, delivery address, to use a specific transporter or to handle collections.
Typically the Area Code matches the Postal Area (but it does not have to).
Set a general Lead Time for this Delivery Area.
- This is the default lead time for this Delivery Area.
- Any Lead Time set on a Delivery Depot will override the lead time on this Delivery Area.
If you are going to use a different Transporter or charge different values for Pallet deliveries you will need to set the minimum number of Cases on a Delivery before it will be considered a Pallet Delivery or Pallet Charging.
- You can set the Pallet charging and Pallet delivery cases independently of each other.
- You can use one without using the other.
If you are going to discount for Part Pallets you will need to set the discount in percentage off the Charge Band set against Pallet Band for both the 1/4 pallets and 1/2 pallets.
- The system will calculate the Pallet cost as per the Charge Band and then apply the discount percentage if the number of Cases indicates a 1/4 or 1/2 pallet.
- The default number of Pallets Per Case, number of Pallets for a 1/2 or 1/4 Pallet are all defined in the system (cannot be changed in the application).
  - If you want to change these values you will need to contact the Vision Support Team.
You can have as many Delivery Areas as you want.
For more information please see the Add/Edit Delivery Area page.

Step 3 - Setup Delivery Depots

At the bottom of the Delivery Area screen any Depots you have set up will be listed (you will always have at least one).

You do not have to use all the Depots listed.
The system will check which Depot the goods are being transported from and match against that Depot.
A Delivery Depot will only show in this list if the ‘Has Warehouse ?’ field is checked.

The Source Depot is the Depot the goods are currently stored against.

The Case Delivery Depot is the Depot where Cases will be delivered from and the Pallet Delivery Depot where the Pallets will be delivered from.
- The Case and Pallet Depots can be different.
- These may be the same or different from the Source Depot (above) depending on your organisation's setup.

Choose which Charge Band you want to use for Case deliveries in the Case Band column and the Charge Band for Pallets deliveries in the Pallet Band column.

Choose which Transporter you want to use for Cases in the Case Carrier and which Transporter for Pallets in the Pallet Carrier column.

You can use different Transporters for Cases and Pallets but do not have to.
Check which Days this Delivery Area can deliver on.
- Any days you do not want to deliver on for this Delivery Area should be left unchecked.
Choose the Lead time for Cases in the Day Lead Time column and for Pallets in the Pallet Lead Time column.
- N.B. These settings are per Depot.
  - If you have multiple source depots set up, each can have its own charging, transporters, valid days and lead times setup.
For more information please see the Depot page.

Step 4 - Setup the Postal Areas and Countries

Postal Areas capture all or part of a postcode on a delivery and directs the system to the correct Delivery Area.
A Postal Area can only point to one Delivery Area but multiple Postal Areas (and Countries) can point to the same Delivery Area.
The system will always try to match a Postal Area to the closest matching Delivery Area.
- For example Postal Areas for the postcode: CM15 0LB
  - Postal Area = CM15 0LB - Any delivery with this exact postcode will be directed to the Delivery Area for this Postal Area.
  - Postal Area = CM15 - Any delivery that starts with CM15 will be directed to the Delivery Area for this Postal Area unless a better match has already been found (as above).
  - Postal Area = CM - Any delivery that starts with CM will be directed to the Delivery Area for this Postal Area unless a better match is found (as above).
- In the examples above the CM15 0LB Postal Area is an exact match for the postcode so would be used.
  - Any other postcodes starting with CM15 would go to the second Delivery Area and any other postcodes starting CM to the 3rd Delivery Area.
- Explanation of use:
  - You might want all Deliveries that have postcodes starting CM to default to your Chelmsford Delivery Area, to be dealt with by a Chelmsford specific Transporter and have costs appropriate to this Transporter.
  - However, the CM15 Postal Area might have special restrictions (security, low emission zone or tolls etc) that require other costs or maybe additional paperwork generated prior to the delivery.
    - By creating a CM15 Postal Area, most deliveries would go to the CM Postal Area except where the postcode starts CM15.
    - To continue this analogy, you might also have a specific company based at CM15 0LB, plus a Transporter service and costing unique to them.
  - In the screenshot above you can see that the Country is GB.
    - This means the Postcode is validated and the Delivery Area found by looking for a Postal Area match.
  - The system did not match the whole Postcode so it looks for the closest Postal Area match.
  - The closest match was the CM Postal Area.
  - The system then updates the Routing & Charging fields with the Delivery Area: CM, the Charge Band (from the Delivery Area): P2 and the Delivery Depot that the goods will be despatched from (also from the Delivery Area).
- Grouping Delivery Areas by their Postal Area.
  - By grouping several Postal Areas together you can create delivery and charge regions of your own choosing.
  - For example London (LDN) Delivery Area:
    - Set a Postal Area for each main postcode: E, EC, N, NW, SE, SW, W, WC and point each one at the same Delivery Area: LDN.
    - Now any delivery starting with one of these postcodes will come under the LDN Delivery Area and get the same lead times, Delivery Depots and Transport service and charges.
    - You can still be more specific if you need to be.
      - For Example, if you need to deliver to a specific Customer address (eg EC1V 3RS) using non-LDN standard Transporter or pricing you can also add a Postal Area and Delivery Area just for this (that you might call LDN-EC1V3RS).
      - There is no standard way to name your Delivery Areas - you can name them to suit your organisation.
    - You can also omit any Postal Area you do not want to deliver to.
      - For example, you might have individual Postal Areas set as AB2, AB3, AB4, all the way to AB25 but none setup for AB1 (because it has been pedestrianised).
      - Any delivery with AB1 would then fail validation and the Delivery would go on hold so you can make alternative arrangements.
  - Country Code setup is a little simpler because it has very few fields.
    - Most of the Country Codes will already be set up in the system for you, but you can edit the ones that exist in the system already and add new ones if you need to.
    - By default you will have only Country Code: GB with the 'Uses Postcode' checked.
      - Non-GB countries (especially EU) have non-unique postcodes and this can cause issues trying to match a postcode to a Postal Area.
      - You can check the ‘Uses Postcode’ on a non-GB Country and then add a Postal Area in the same way as you would for GB.
      - N.B. Checking for both the Country Code and postcode for any Country where the ‘Uses Postcode’ option is checked is planned for a future version but until then you need to be aware that the postcodes between different Countries may not be unique.
  - The Country Management screen - GB.
    - In the example (above) you can see GB has ‘Uses Postcode’ checked but has no Delivery Area.
      - This is because the GB Delivery Area validates against the postcode only.
      - Vision Distribution requires all GB postcodes are fully validated before a Delivery can be processed.
  - The Country Management screen - FR.
    - In this second example (above) you can see FR does not have ‘Uses Postcode’ checked but does have a Delivery Area.
      - This is because all Deliveries to FR are going via a Transporter specified in the FR delivery area regardless of any postcode consideration.
      - Route planning modules do not currently extend outside the UK.
  - You can have as many Postal Areas or Countries as you need.
  - For more information please see the Add/Edit Postal Areas and Add/Edit Country pages.

Summary

This system provides a great deal of flexibility and control over who and how goods are delivered within the GB postal areas but it does need to be set up carefully and correctly.
If you are in any doubt after running through the process as described, please do not hesitate to contact the Vision Support Team with any questions.