Dock Door to Dock Door – Shipping Part 1

Last week we stood on the receiving dock watching pallets roll in. This week, we’re turning around and walking to the other side of the warehouse where everything goes out.

Shipping. It’s the final act of the warehouse performance. It’s where all your upstream discipline either pays off or burns down in a spectacular display of “why is this load still showing open?”

Let’s break it down.

What “Shipping” Actually Means in D365 F&O

In D365, shipping isn’t one button. It’s a process chain. Every company defines it differently, but it typically follows this pattern:

1. Pick – Workers grab what’s needed for a sales order, transfer order, or production demand. More on these three down below.

2. Pack – Items are consolidated, labeled, and prepared for transport.

3. Ship Confirmation – The official “it’s gone” moment meaning inventory is deducted, and financial ownership moves downstream.

Think of it as the opposite of receiving. Inbound establishes truth; outbound seals it.

The Different Flavors of Shipping

Not all outbound processes are equal. Here are the three most common types you’ll see in D365:

• Sales Order Shipping – Outbound to customers. Key here is customers. Now there are cases where implementations consider a customer to be loosely defined where we typically think of a customer as someone who is buying our product. In the case where you're warehouse (for example) isn't part of your F&O instance, you would technically sell to that 'customer'. This is where carrier integration, packing slips, and freight calculations come into play.

• Transfer Order Shipping – Internal transfers between sites or warehouses. Less paperwork, same rigor.

• Project and Production Shipping – Items shipped to job sites or production lines. Usually involves staging locations and load planning.

Each type flows differently but shares one reality: until you confirm the shipment, you’re sitting on dead inventory.

Basic vs. Advanced Warehousing – Pick a Side

Basic Warehousing:

• Use a picking list journal to issue inventory.

• Pack manually and post a packing slip for financial update.

• Confirm shipment at the order level.

It’s simple, reliable, and still used by plenty of businesses.

Advanced Warehousing (WMS):

• Outbound work is generated through wave templates and work templates.

• Warehouse workers use mobile devices to pick, pack, and load.

• Shipment and load confirmations drive the process — not the sales order itself.

Here’s the catch: once you enable WMS for a warehouse, ship confirmations must happen from the load or shipment, not directly from the sales order. Ignore that and you’ll end up with phantom inventory and unhappy finance teams.

Packing Stations – The Unsung Heroes

If you’ve ever tried to pack multiple orders at once without a proper setup, you know the pain.

Packing stations let you:

• Consolidate orders into containers.

• Print shipping labels and packing slips.

• Track weight, dimensions, and container content.

• Trigger container close and ship confirm directly from the station.

One overlooked tip: define your container groups carefully. They decide how containers behave during packing and how freight gets calculated.

Ship Confirmation – The Point of No Return

In D365 F&O, Ship Confirmation marks the moment goods leave the building.

When you confirm a shipment:

• On-hand inventory is reduced.

• Shipment status changes to Shipped.

• Financially, the system treats the goods as sold or transferred.

If you accidentally confirm early, reversing it isn’t a single click meaning it involves unposting packing slips, reopening shipments, and reprocessing the load.

Once you hit “Ship,” it’s your Getaway Truck moment (cue Taylor Swift foreshadowing).

Common Pitfalls at the Outbound Dock

• Double confirmation. Users confirm both at the load and sales order levels. Only one is valid; pick one lane.

• Forgetting staging. If you don’t configure staging locations, loads pile up in pick locations, killing efficiency.

• Missing carrier setup. If your mode of delivery isn’t tied to a carrier, freight cost won’t post correctly.

• Delayed confirmations. Loads sit in Loaded status all week. Inventory stays locked, finance can’t invoice, and your KPIs lie to you.

• Packing slip confusion. Posting the packing slip before the ship confirmation will cause D365 to treat it as financially shipped before it physically left. That’s a mismatch you’ll feel in your financial statements.

Dad Joke Intermission

Why did the shipment go to therapy? Because it couldn’t handle all the baggage.

Metrics to Watch at the Dock Door

• Pick-to-Ship Cycle Time – Measure from wave release to ship confirmation. Anything longer than necessary means inefficiency.

• Load Confirmation Accuracy – Every load should reconcile to physical goods, no exceptions.

• Carrier Compliance – How often are shipments confirmed with the right mode and rate?

• Shipment Reversals – If you’re doing more than a handful per month, your process isn’t stable.

What Finance Cares About

Finance doesn’t care that your scanner ran out of battery. They care that:

• The packing slip was posted for the right quantities.

• The shipment date aligns with the invoice date.

• The cost of goods sold reflects when ownership truly transferred.

Late ship confirmations mean delayed revenue recognition.

Shipping isn’t glamorous. It’s accountability on wheels. You can’t fake it, you can only confirm it. Get your outbound flow clean, and your dock will hum like a Taylor chorus on release day.

DynamicsDad