Manage shipments and loading orders in SamBooks

This is where you organize transport for your sales orders, from the moment an order is ready to ship through to delivery: choose how to ship it (your own fleet, a trusted carrier, or a ShippyPro courier), generate the label when you need one, produce the delivery note, and track the status of every shipment.

What it's for

The Shipments section (sidebar Logistics → Shipments, at /spedizioni) groups the whole transport cycle into two tabs:

• Orders to plan: confirmed sales orders with Free (on our account) carriage — the ones you organize, not the customer — that don't have a loading order yet.
• Loading orders: the loading orders you've already created, with status, carrier, packages and the actions available on each.

Inside SamBooks a loading order is also called a "shipment": both words describe the same object, and you'll see both used below. For each loading order you pick one of three transport modes — own account (your own vehicles, no third-party carrier), carrier (a trusted transport supplier) or ShippyPro (a courier with an automatic label and tracking) — and carry it through to delivery, generating the accompanying delivery note along the way.

You can do all of this by talking to Sam in the chat too — for example "create a loading order for order 22/2026 on our own account", "generate the label for shipment SP-2026-00012" or "generate the delivery note from loading order SP-2026-00009". The manual workflow described below and the chat are equivalent: use whichever you prefer at any time.

Prerequisites

• A role with write access to the Warehouse and logistics area (Manager, Administrative or Logistics).
• At least one confirmed sales order with Free (on our account) carriage: orders with "Carriage forward" (the recipient pays) don't show up here, because the recipient organizes the transport.
• To assign a loading order to a carrier: a supplier with the "Is a carrier" switch turned on (you can create one on the fly during the flow).
• To use ShippyPro: your ShippyPro account connected with your API key (see step 9).

Step-by-step

1. Open the "Orders to plan" worklist

From Logistics → Shipments you land on the Orders to plan tab, selected by default. The table shows Order, Date, Pickup, Destination, Total volume, Total weight and Transp. budget for every order still waiting to ship, with a Create loading order action at the end of each row.

Filter with Search (order number or customer), Pickup province, Delivery province and Period. If you don't find anything, check the active-filters badge and use Clear filters.

Click a row to open the order's logistics summary (customer, carriage terms, pickup and delivery addresses, lines and packages) before creating the loading order.

2. Create a loading order on your own account (own fleet)

From the order row (or from the summary you just opened) click Create loading order: the "Create loading order from order" window opens with the order already selected in the Source step.

Move to the Transport step and choose Own account: the window shrinks to just two steps, because there's no carrier to specify. Optionally fill in Transport cost (internal use only), the Expected pickup date and Notes, then click Create loading order.

The loading order is created right away in Assigned status and appears on the Loading orders tab.

3. Assign a loading order to a third-party carrier

Same path as step 2, but at the Transport step choose Carrier. Pick the carrier-supplier from the dropdown, or click Create carrier to add one on the fly: fill in the registry entry and remember to turn on the "Is a carrier" switch, otherwise SamBooks won't accept it as a valid carrier.

Enter the Agreed carrier price and click Create loading order. Later, when you generate the delivery note from this loading order (see step 6), SamBooks automatically creates a purchase order to the carrier too, with a "Trasporto merci" (transport service) line at 22% VAT, visible under Purchase orders: it's a commercial document, not a fiscal one — the cost only reaches your ledger when you register the carrier's actual purchase invoice.

4. Assign a loading order to a ShippyPro courier

You need to have connected ShippyPro first (step 9). At the Transport step, ShippyPro is selected by default; the final button becomes Create and configure: the loading order is created immediately (Assigned status) and the window moves to the Shipment step to finish choosing a courier and a label.

On the Shipment step:

• Compare rates queries ShippyPro and shows the available carrier/service/price options;
• pick a rate and click Generate label: SamBooks creates the real label with the courier (billed on your ShippyPro plan) and saves the tracking number and label on the loading order;
• from here you can also Download label PDF, Refresh tracking, and, in the pickup section, set the Pickup date, Load available slots and Book pickup;
• if you need to undo it, Void label removes the generated label and returns the loading order to "to complete" status (the void is real on the carrier's side too).

You can also close the window right after the loading order is created, without finishing the label: pick up where you left off whenever you like (see step 7).

5. Plan several orders together, or split one order into several loading orders

In the Source step you can select several orders with the checkboxes: this creates a single multi-stop loading order, with deliveries to the same address merged into one stop. It works best with orders for the same customer or the same destination — SamBooks doesn't block other combinations, but it won't group them intelligently either.

If you select a single order, the Packages to load field becomes editable: lower it below the maximum remainder to create a partial loading order. The rest of the packages stay in the "Orders to plan" worklist (tagged "partial") until you plan them too, with a second loading order.

6. Generate the delivery note from the shipment

From a loading order in Assigned status, linked to an order and without a delivery note yet, open the detail (click the row) or use the row action Create DN directly. SamBooks generates a draft sales delivery note, inheriting the destination and lines from the loading order/order, and the loading order automatically moves to In transit.

Stock is only deducted when you issue the delivery note, not when you simply create it: until then, your inventory stays unchanged. After the delivery note is created, the Create DN and Cancel actions disappear from the loading order — you can no longer cancel it, only move forward.

7. Resume a ShippyPro loading order left half-done

If you created a ShippyPro loading order and closed the window before generating the label, you'll find it on the Loading orders tab marked "to complete". Reopen the management dialog with the row icon Manage ShippyPro, or from the loading order's detail with the Manage ShippyPro button: it reopens the same window on the existing loading order — it doesn't create a new one — so you can continue where you left off: rate comparison, label, pickup.

8. Check the detail and the actions available per status

Clicking a row on the Loading orders tab opens the loading order's detail, with the available actions changing based on status:

• Loading order (PDF): always available, to print the internal transport document.
• Download label PDF: only once you've generated a ShippyPro label.
• Manage ShippyPro: only on loading orders with a ShippyPro courier that aren't cancelled.
• Create DN: only on an Assigned loading order, linked to an order, without a delivery note yet.
• Cancel: only on an Assigned loading order without a delivery note.

The loading order's status moves from Assigned to In transit (when the delivery note is created) up to Delivered; it can also move to Exception, or — if you cancel it before creating the delivery note — to Cancelled.

9. Connect, test or disconnect ShippyPro

You can connect your ShippyPro account from two places: the Connect ShippyPro button at the top of the Shipments page (it becomes ShippyPro integration once connected), or from Settings → Integrations, ShippyPro card, Connect ShippyPro button (or Manage if already connected) — it's the same dialog either way.

Inside the management dialog you'll find: the Connected/not-connected status badge, the last digits of your API key, the date of the last verification, a Test connection button to check the key still works, Update API key (with a step-by-step guide and a direct link to ShippyPro's API Keys page), and Disconnect (asks for confirmation before removing the saved key).

The connection is per company: every company uses its own ShippyPro account and contract, never a key shared with other companies.

10. Turn on tracking emails for the customer

Under Settings → Fiscal profile, Delivery and tracking card, turn on the Shipment tracking to the customer switch. From then on, the customer gets an email at each shipment step (handed over, in transit, delivered), as long as the delivery address or the customer record has a valid email.

Tips

• The default transport mode in the wizard's Transport step is ShippyPro: if you don't use external couriers, remember to explicitly pick Own account or Carrier.
• Only generate a ShippyPro label once you're sure about the rate you've chosen: it's a real, billable action with the courier; use Void label to undo it.
• A multi-stop loading order works best when it groups orders for the same customer or the same destination: SamBooks doesn't flag unlikely combinations automatically.

Common errors

• "No carrier found" in the carrier picker: you don't have a supplier marked as a carrier yet. Create one on the fly with Create carrier, remembering to turn on "Is a carrier".
• No rates or couriers available on the Shipment step: check that you've connected ShippyPro (step 9) and that the account has at least one active courier.
• The order disappears from the worklist (or shows "already planned"): it's already fully covered by an active loading order. Look for it on the Loading orders tab.

FAQ

Can I create a loading order without starting from a sales order? Yes: on the Loading orders tab click New loading order, then in the Source step choose the Manual lines tab, enter a customer (or a free-form recipient) and the item lines to ship.

What happens if I cancel a loading order? It moves to Cancelled status, the Create DN and Cancel actions disappear, and — if the linked order wasn't fully planned yet — the remaining packages become available again in the "Orders to plan" worklist for a new loading order.

Does the transport cost land in accounting automatically? No. For a carrier loading order, the purchase order that gets generated is a commercial document: the cost only reaches your ledger when you register the carrier's actual purchase invoice.

Related features

Sales orders (the source of the orders to plan), sales delivery notes (the document generated from the loading order), the Suppliers registry (to mark a carrier), Purchase orders (the transport purchase order generated automatically for carrier loading orders), Settings → Integrations (to connect ShippyPro), and Settings → Fiscal profile (for customer tracking emails).