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ShipStation supports three kinds of integration, this article covers connecting a ShipStation store

  • ShipStation store integration - This connects ShipStation store as an eCommerce channel. Orders are passed from ShipStation to DEAR for stock management. This is best if you are using sales channels not integrated with DEAR, and integrate channels instead with ShipStation via API. 
  • ShipStation custom store - we recommend this is you are using eCommerce channels integrated with DEAR. ShipStation pulls orders from DEAR (including eCommerce orders), fulfillment and shipping label printing takes place in ShipStation, then shipping information and stock movements are synced back to DEAR. See ShipStation custom store for more information. 
  • Connect ShipStation as a shipping service - similar in function to custom store. Orders (including eCommerce orders) are placed in DEAR, orders can be fulfilled either through DEAR or exported to ShipStation for fulfillment, shipment information is synced with ShipStation to generate shipping labels, printable in DEAR. We recommend this if you are using eCommerce channels integrated with DEAR and need to filter sale orders before export. See ShipStation as a shipping service for more information.


DEAR as a Custom Store can be connected at the same time as ShipStation store, DEAR has validation to prevent the same order being sent through twice. However, for optimum performance we recommend connecting only one. 


ShipStation store and ShipStation shipping service can be connected at the same time without problems. 


NOTE: When a refund is processed for an unfulfilled sale, this will cause an error with restocking the unfulfilled items. These will appear on the log as Pending fulfillment. If you are experiencing this error, you will need to enable the Ignore restock for non-fulfilled sales setting. This setting is not enabled automatically in order to preserve system logic continuity for users.


Prerequisites

  • Familiarity with the Processing a sale process (necessary)
  • Familiarity with Products and product management (necessary)
  • Users will need the Integration: Shipment - Shipstation permission in order to use this feature. 
  • Only one ShipStation account can be connected to DEAR.
  • Users will need to add an External integration licence to their subscription if they do not have one available.


Table of Content


ShipStation store (DEAR pulls orders from ShipStation)

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ShipStation store downloads order data from the ShipStation eCommerce storefront to be synced with DEAR stock levels and processed in DEAR. 


ShipStation integration setup

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ShipStation custom store and shipping service should not be connected at the same time. ShipStation store can be connected at the same time as either Custom store or shipping service. 


NOTE: When using both types of integration (custom store and ShipStation store), there are some validations to prevent user data from being damaged:

  • Cannot download data from ShipStation (API) if this data was first exported from DEAR using (custom store integration). Data will not be saved.

  • Unable to export (custom store integration) sale orders that were downloaded from ShipStation (API).

  • You need to use a DEAR login that is linked to a single DEAR organization only. When trying to connect ShipStation to a DEAR account with more than one organization, error code 300 will be generated, preventing data from being exported to ShipStation. 

Users will need to add an External integration licence to their subscription if they do not have one available. Additional external integrations must be purchased from the My subscription page. 


Connect ShipStation store to DEAR:

  1. Navigate to Integration → ShipStation.
  2. Click + to connect a new store. Only one ShipStation account can be connected to DEAR.
  3. Enter your API credentials and click Connect ShipStation as a store. You can find your API credentials in the API settings of your ShipStation account.


Integration settings

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In the Setup tab, several integration settings can be customized.


Capture order when it is

This option specifies when a ShipStation order will be captured: when it is created, when it is paid, when it is no longer on hold or when it is shipped. This setting is also taken into account when downloads of historical orders from ShipStation are triggered.


Consolidate orders

DEAR - ShipStation integration allows two options for order consolidation:

  • No Consolidation
  • Daily Consolidation.


No consolidation indicates that sales will be captured from ShipStation once an hour as individual sales. Daily consolidation will consolidate all orders from that day into a single order. When daily consolidation is chosen, an additional setting becomes available – Consolidation time. This is your local time when all pending orders aggregated during the day will be processed.


See the Pending order processing section below for more details.


Customer

For the pending order processing to be successful, an existing customer must be selected.

When consolidation type is daily consolidation, this customer is used to create a new sale task which will combine all daily sales. A customer can be created in DEAR just for this purpose.


Price tier

Choose which DEAR price tier to use when DEAR downloads products from ShipStation or updates product information. See Managing price tiers for more information. 


Pick, pack, and ship processing mode

When pending orders are processed by DEAR, new sale tasks are created. This setting tells DEAR if it should try to auto pick, auto pack and auto ship these tasks. If there is not enough stock on hand to pick the full quantity of products in an order, then pick will remain in draft state, and pack and ship won’t be completed.


Ignore restock for non-fulfilled sales

When a refund is processed for an unfulfilled sale, this will cause an error with restocking the unfulfilled items. These will appear on the Log as Pending fulfillment. If you are experiencing this error, you will need to enable this setting. Restock/stock allocation quantities will be edited to match the fulfilled items of the sale. This setting is only applicable when Pick, pack, and ship mode for processing online sales is set to Auto pick + pack + ship.


Invoice status

You can control the Invoice status for sale tasks created as a result of pending order processing. By default, the invoice will not be authorized and will be in draft state, adjustable and waiting for authorization. However, if this setting is changed to authorized, the invoice will be automatically authorized, and pending sync will be created for it to sync with an accounting application of your choice.


Optional revenue account

Revenue account to be used for all sales downloaded from ShipStation. This will override settings at the product/customer level and any other account mapping. 


ShipStation dimension units

To avoid discrepancy, this setting must match the dimension setting from your ShipStation account. You can find your ShipStation dimension settings by going to ShipStation → Account settings → Display options → Time and units.


Sales representative name

This option allows the shop name to be used as a sales representative. 


Match product
An option to choose automatic mapping by SKU or manual mapping by the user when products are downloaded from ShipStation (by pressing Load products on the Catalog tab of the ShipStation integration). When automatic mapping is selected, the existing product will be searched for automatically by SKU, and if a product is found with a matching SKU, then the mapping is done automatically. When manual mapping is selected, the user will have to manually select which DEAR products to link to via the catalog tab. Manual mapping can still be performed even if automatic mapping is enabled. See Linking catalog products for more information.


Create a new product if not found by SKU

This option is only available when Match product by SKU is enabled. With this option enabled, if there is a product (SKU) in the sale channel that does not yet exist in DEAR, then this product can be automatically built in DEAR based on the data received about the product from a sale channel. The possibility of a manual build is still always available through the DEAR UI.


Use ShipStation as master source for DEAR products

If this option is enabled, if a product has been changed or updated in ShipStation, the linked product in DEAR will be changed to match upon catalog download. Product changes in DEAR can include changed price, name, weight, length, pictures and other data (except SKU) based on the product data downloaded from ShipStation. Be aware! Turning on this feature can damage your product data in DEAR.


Shipment is taxable

In ShipStation, tax is entered just as a single amount. In DEAR, tax is attributed per line item, so if this option, it is distributed based on a prorated basis of total invoice lines.

  • Examples:
    • If No is selected, the additional charges column won't have tax attributed to it.
    • If Yes is selected, the additional charges column will have a tax amount attributed to it on a prorated basis taken from the total tax line amount.


Enable order routing

When a customer places an order, DEAR can automatically route the order to the seller's inventory location nearest to the provided shipping address for fulfillment. See Order routing for more information.


Process auto-assembly as

This dropdown field has two options:

  • For ordered quantity: Does not check stock quantity. An assembly order is created for the quantity specified in the sale order, regardless of stock availability. 
  • For minimum quantity required for picking: Assemble stock required to meet the quantity of specific sale order. 
    • If stock availability is negative, auto-assembly will produce a finished goods quantity which is more than the quantity ordered through sale order. 
    • If there is already stock available in inventory but not enough to fulfill the sale order quantity, auto-assembly will assemble the difference in quantity needed to meet the sale order requirement.
    • If stock availability exceeds sale order quantity, auto-assembly is not triggered. 


Stock availability is validated against the sale order location and does not take on order quantity into account. 


Location mapping

ShipStation supports multiple locations. Map ShipStation warehouses to your DEAR locations here. 


Tax rule mapping

For businesses located in the United States, it is necessary to Add a US place of business by clicking the button and inputting the correct US address (by entering the correct ZIP code first). After that, new tax rules will be created. Generally, this will be three tax rules: State, State, County and State, County, City. These tax rules will be automatically applied to sale invoice lines (products) downloaded from ShipStation and having a shipping address in the US.


When a pending order is processed by DEAR, a sale task is created. Each order and invoice line is assigned a tax rule. The tax rules specified in these settings will be used to create these lines. 


DEAR does not apply the tax rule to recalculate tax and is simply using the actual tax amount from the ShipStation order. This means that if certain products are not taxable or with varying tax in ShipStation, all data and totals in DEAR will look identical to ShipStation, but with DEAR tax rule name selected in this setting.


In the case of tax recalculation, the tax amount will be overwritten with a value calculated by DEAR taxation rule.


IMPORTANT: Orders will be skipped on download if taxation mapping is not finished! 


Payment account mapping

DEAR can capture payments made against orders in ShipStation and is able to automatically add payments to a created sale invoice. To do this, payment account mapping must be completed on this integration settings screen. You must choose an account that is able to receive payments from the chart of accounts. 


This setting is not mandatory – if payment mapping is not completed, orders are still captured and downloaded from ShipStation, but payments must be manually added to invoices in DEAR. Some customers prefer to keep invoices open and then reconcile them with payouts from ShipStation. 


Disconnect from ShipStation store

When you disconnect from ShipStation store, DEAR removes all associations between DEAR objects and ShipStation, including log and product catalog.


Catalog

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The DEAR ShipStation catalog page allows the user to download products from ShipStation, break the link between a DEAR product and its ShipStation listing and update quantities in ShipStation according to DEAR available stock.


Downloading products

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Products can be loaded from ShipStation to DEAR in the Catalog tab by clicking Load Products. This operation may take some time.


All products in ShipStation are mapped as simple products in DEAR. ShipStation does not support product variations and does not supply quantities, which are required in DEAR. If the customer has bought a product variation in their ShipStation order, information about the selected options will be provided in the order and invoice sections of the sale order for each line in the comment field.


When a product is created/updated in DEAR during the download process, there is a link established between the product and variant unique ShipStation product ID and DEAR unique product ID. This link is used when products are matched against sale order lines in ShipStation and when subsequent product downloads occur.


The category field is not mandatory for ShipStation but is a required field for DEAR. If a product has no category specified, DEAR will give it the product category Other.


When downloading products, DEAR tries to match existing products first to avoid creating duplicates. In ShipStation, the product name/SKU can be non-unique whereas DEAR enforces mandatory SKUs. Names that appear more than once will produce an error message, and the user will be able to link products manually. 


During product download DEAR automatically creates product categories for all product types in ShipStation if specified.


Normally this function is not used except for test purposes because DEAR automatically creates products when processing sale orders and because there is no quantity information for products in ShipStation.


Data mapping for products between DEAR and ShipStation:

DEAR
ShipStation
SKUSKU
NameProduct name
CategoryCategory (if specified) or other
DescriptionProduct InternalNotes
WeightWeightOz (converted to KG on download)
WidthWidth
HeightHeight
LengthLength
Product tagsProduct tags associated with ShipStation product
Product typeAlways stock
Price tier 1 (Default)Price
StockLocatorValueProduct WarehouseLocation
ESCCustomField1Product fulfillmentSKU


Linking catalog products

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There are two possible statuses for products in the catalog: Not listed or Listed.


You can download products from ShipStation and perform automatic product mapping to products in DEAR. Products in DEAR cannot be listed in ShipStation. 


There are three linking options:

  • Leave blank (do not tie to a product in DEAR)
  • Link to an existing product
  • Create a new product in DEAR (available if the product with the required SKU does not exist).


Orders and sales

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Processing pending orders

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If No consolidation is selected, each ShipStation sale is converted into an identical sale in DEAR, keeping the same customer and shipping information. These orders will be captured once an hour. If Daily consolidation is selected, the single daily sale task will use the customer selected in the integration settings, and customer, billing and shipping information imported from ShipStation will be ignored. 


When processing orders, the logic is identical to that of the DEAR UI. DropShipping, kitting and other important scenarios are implemented in the same way as through the DEAR UI.


Pending orders can be processed manually by clicking Process. They can then be viewed in the Log tab.


Cancelling an order in ShipStation will NOT cancel or void the linked sale task in DEAR. The sale must be manually voided in DEAR.


Downloading customers

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The Load customers button can be found next to Load products


This function downloads all customers from ShipStation to DEAR. If the customer already exists in DEAR, this function updates any details that have been changed in ShipStation. As DEAR automatically creates customers when processing sale orders (if 'no consolidation' option is selected), this function is generally only used for testing purposes. 


This function creates a customer in DEAR with contact, billing and business addresses captured from ShipStation.


Downloading orders and payments

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Orders are automatically downloaded every hour if they have been created or changed in ShipStation. 


NOTE: Generally, you do not need to trigger manual order download, however, if an order was not captured by DEAR or to load historical sales you can use the manual Load order option. DEAR allows loading historical sales data a maximum of one year old.


Any imported order is saved to the pending orders section. It is a temporary storage of all sales and payments in DEAR. If an order already has an entry in the log (i.e. was imported previously), it will be skipped. This guarantees that no duplicate sales will be created by DEAR.


While saving orders, DEAR captures customer information, billing and shipping addresses. All line items are captured together with quantities, prices and totals. Total order discounts are applied as are additional charges to the whole order, without distribution by lines to reduce the chance of discrepancy.


Invoice adjustment lines are also saved in the sale invoice as additional charges named shipping.


If a payment account has been specified in the integration settings, DEAR will always assign associated payments to the captured ShipStation orders.


For each line in the sale order DEAR tries to locate a corresponding product by SKU. If no product is found, DEAR tries to download product info from ShipStation with the same logic as in Download products function. If product info is not found, DEAR marks this line as service (non-product). Next, the sale line is saved to pending orders with all data from ShipStation: tax, quantity and total.


The final step in the order download is to trigger the update of stock levels in other ShipStation stores and other connected eCommerce channels.


Cancelling an order in ShipStation will NOT cancel or void the linked sale task in DEAR. The sale must be manually voided in DEAR. 


Returns and refunds

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DEAR captures refunds from ShipStation. DEAR will then capture the refund and return/restock and apply them to the associated sale task.


Please note that if the sale is unfulfilled, this will cause an error with restocking the unfulfilled items. These will appear on the log as Pending fulfillment. If you are experiencing this error, you will need to enable the Ignore restock for non-fulfilled sales setting.


Submit returns request via RMA portal

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Customers can submit returns requests via Cin7 Core RMA Portal if your organization subscription has this feature, allowing customers to initiate the Cin7 Core RMA workflow, and view the status of their returns. This includes sales processed through connected eCommerce channels. 


Any Cin7 Core customer can submit a returns requests via the returns portal with an order number or invoice number and email address simply by accessing the relevant URL. We recommend adding the URL to the return portal to your default sale email template sent to customers. Please see detailed instructions at RMA Portal for returns requests


Please note that refunds/restocked processed in this way will not be automatically exported to the eCommerce channel, and will have to be added manually updated within the channel. You may prefer to use the returns workflow offered by ShipStation if you do not need the additional RMA workflow features in Core. 


Refunds for sales predating integration with DEAR

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Merchants with eCommerce channels occasionally have to process returns or refunds for a sale that predates integration of the eCommerce channel with DEAR. 


Sales and refund information is imported automatically from the eCommerce channel to DEAR, but can also be manually imported via the DEAR web portal. Historical refunds and returns are handled differently for each case. 


Automatic import: DEAR checks the sale order date against the date of integration with the eCommerce channel. If the sale order date predates the date of integration, credit note and refund are imported without the corresponding historical sale task. 

  • A sale is created without order lines or invoice lines. 
  • Credit note tab shows refunded items and if a refund was processed in the eCommerce channel it will be captured on this tab. 
  • Restock tab is left empty and no stock adjustments are made. 


Manual import: Manually loading orders from Shopify functions in the same way whether the sale took place before or after integration with DEAR. 

  • From the Pending orders tab, click Load orders and select a date to load sales, including historical sales pending orders. Process the sale associated with the refund. 
  • The sale order with have order, invoice, pick, pack, and ship lines. It will also have credit note and restock lines. 
  • User will have to perform a manual stock adjustment to correct any discrepancies from the refund. 


Updating fulfillment in ShipStation

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DEAR pulls sales from ShipStation. When ShipStation is connected as the store, ShipStation is the driver of the integration. Carrier and tracking information is not pushed to DEAR and will only be visible from the ShipStation side. 


DEAR cannot push any fulfillment data to ShipStation. 


Logs

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Each captured ShipStation order once saved to pending orders creates a log entry to track the link between the sale in DEAR and in ShipStation. This eliminates the possibility of creating duplicated orders when capturing the same order several times during manual order load. 


Each log entry has a link to the sale task in DEAR. Depending on the settings selected by the user in the setup tab, this sale task could be draft or authorized, one or more of the pick, pack and ship tabs could be authorized, and payment could have been applied to the invoice. 


Log entries allow you to see which sale task reflects a particular ShipStation sale. You also have the option to delete a log entry manually. This will allow reprocessing an order if required. Deleting a log entry will not void or delete its associated sale task.


Reloading orders from ShipStation

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If for any reason you need to reload an order from ShipStation, this can be managed from DEAR. DEAR allows loading historical sales data a maximum of one year old.


Reload an order from ShipStation:

  1. Void the sale task. A record of this will be kept in DEAR for reconciliation purposes but the transactional data will be deleted. 
  2. Return to the ShipStation integration Log tab and delete the log entry. This will allow the order to be recaptured from ShipStation.
  3. Navigate to the Pending orders tab and click Load orders, making sure the date is set to before the order to reload was made. DEAR allows loading historical sales data a maximum of one year old.


Operations log

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Each time the user or DEAR downloads sales, an appropriate record is added to the operation log. It also contains information about results of downloading, including the count of processed, skipped or cancelled orders.


ShipStation Custom store (DEAR sends orders to ShipStation to be fulfilled)

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We recommend this is you are using eCommerce channels integrated with DEAR, or are sending orders to ShipStation. 


ShipStation pulls orders from DEAR (including eCommerce orders), fulfillment and shipping label printing takes place in ShipStation, then shipping information and stock movements are synced back to DEAR. See ShipStation Custom store for more information.

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