Hi PEGGY THAW,

I'm a long-time Sage 50 add-on partner that produces several products to help close gaps in customers' business processes.  One of my existing customers, who uses my CartSpan Sage 50 eCommerce integration, asked me if I could write something to push orders originating in Sage 50, to their ShipStation account.  ShipStation is another popular shipping fulfillment software that you may have seen advertised on national television and is the basic functionality the replaces ShipGear.   This has worked so well that I ended up productizing it into an offering called ShipSync.  It has been actively running in multiple accounts for the last 18 months.

As of the most recent edit at the end of this post (6/22/23) ShipSync now behaves in essentially the same manner as ShipGear with a couple of additional improvements.  

[EDIT: 2/6/23]  ShipSync will now monitor shipments in ShipStation and email complete tracking, contact, actual freight cost to the associated Sales Representative (and/or billing) configured on the Sage 50 order.  These emails serves as a trigger for Invoicing and follow-up support for tracking.  Emails are directed to the address configured for the Sales Rep in the Sage 50 employee master file.  ShipStation itself has provisions for email communications to the customer. 

[EDIT: 2/20/23]  ShipSync now includes a client application that can be installed on any number of computers (no fee) for the purpose of requesting freight quotes from your ShipStation account.  Just provide a QUOTE or ORDER number that exists in Sage and ShipSync will collect supporting detail from the transaction to support the freight estimate.  This includes weight and volume (optional) detail for the line items.  Volume information is configured in one of the item custom fields that you decide.  ShipStation returns freight quotes from all of the carriers that you have accounts with.  Here is a screenshot of a sample request and response:

Another benefit is that ShipSync does not consume a Sage 50 user license to run.

[EDIT: 3/23/23]   What you are going to find is that ShipSync + ShipStation is going to offer you a more cost-effective solution than alternative offerings.   What makes this solution more cost-efficient is the single price of ShipStation for access to all supported carriers.  Contrast this to alternative solutions where there is an expensive incremental cost for adding support for each carrier.  On top of this, there is often a 'slice of the pie' in the form of commission that goes to any 3rd party associated with steering alternate solutions in your direction.

[EDIT 6/22/23]  ShipSync will now update the Order/Invoice in Sage 50 with tracking information and actual freight charges.  An optional freight upcharge configuration is available.   ShipSync also supports alternate billing accounts with rule-based freight write-back exceptions.  An improvement over ShipGear is ShipSync's specific handling of orders with serialized inventory items...which Sage's newer API does not allow updates to.

[EDIT 10/30/23] In addition to a global freight markup option, ShipSync now offers more granular markup capabilities by carrier and service/package.  A flat-rate or percentage-based markup can be applied to either service or specific packaging option.  

Both ShipSync and ShipStation have free 30 day trials.  They are easy to setup and don't cost you anything to evaluate.

If you decide to give it a whirl, and run into any troubles, just give me a call and we'll get it figured out.  My contact information can be found here.

All the best,

Scott Wheeler
Owner, Noverhead Software LLC

Hi PEGGY THAW,

I'm a long-time Sage 50 add-on partner that produces several products to help close gaps in customers' business processes.  One of my existing customers, who uses my CartSpan Sage 50 eCommerce integration, asked me if I could write something to push orders originating in Sage 50, to their ShipStation account.  ShipStation is another popular shipping fulfillment software that you may have seen advertised on national television and is the basic functionality the replaces ShipGear.   This has worked so well that I ended up productizing it into an offering called ShipSync.  It has been actively running in multiple accounts for the last 18 months.

As of the most recent edit at the end of this post (6/22/23) ShipSync now behaves in essentially the same manner as ShipGear with a couple of additional improvements.  

[EDIT: 2/6/23]  ShipSync will now monitor shipments in ShipStation and email complete tracking, contact, actual freight cost to the associated Sales Representative (and/or billing) configured on the Sage 50 order.  These emails serves as a trigger for Invoicing and follow-up support for tracking.  Emails are directed to the address configured for the Sales Rep in the Sage 50 employee master file.  ShipStation itself has provisions for email communications to the customer. 

[EDIT: 2/20/23]  ShipSync now includes a client application that can be installed on any number of computers (no fee) for the purpose of requesting freight quotes from your ShipStation account.  Just provide a QUOTE or ORDER number that exists in Sage and ShipSync will collect supporting detail from the transaction to support the freight estimate.  This includes weight and volume (optional) detail for the line items.  Volume information is configured in one of the item custom fields that you decide.  ShipStation returns freight quotes from all of the carriers that you have accounts with.  Here is a screenshot of a sample request and response:

Another benefit is that ShipSync does not consume a Sage 50 user license to run.

[EDIT: 3/23/23]   What you are going to find is that ShipSync + ShipStation is going to offer you a more cost-effective solution than alternative offerings.   What makes this solution more cost-efficient is the single price of ShipStation for access to all supported carriers.  Contrast this to alternative solutions where there is an expensive incremental cost for adding support for each carrier.  On top of this, there is often a 'slice of the pie' in the form of commission that goes to any 3rd party associated with steering alternate solutions in your direction.

[EDIT 6/22/23]  ShipSync will now update the Order/Invoice in Sage 50 with tracking information and actual freight charges.  An optional freight upcharge configuration is available.   ShipSync also supports alternate billing accounts with rule-based freight write-back exceptions.  An improvement over ShipGear is ShipSync's specific handling of orders with serialized inventory items...which Sage's newer API does not allow updates to.

[EDIT 10/30/23] In addition to a global freight markup option, ShipSync now offers more granular markup capabilities by carrier and service/package.  A flat-rate or percentage-based markup can be applied to either service or specific packaging option.  

Both ShipSync and ShipStation have free 30 day trials.  They are easy to setup and don't cost you anything to evaluate.

If you decide to give it a whirl, and run into any troubles, just give me a call and we'll get it figured out.  My contact information can be found here.

All the best,

Scott Wheeler
Owner, Noverhead Software LLC