Creating your first ASN (Advanced Shipping Notification)

Once you or your supplier is ready to ship inventory to Amplifier, an ASN must be created.

ASNs, or Advanced Shipping Notifications, provide two essential kinds of information to Amplifier about inbound inventory:

  • Digital: Digital record of your incoming inventory (The SKUs, the # of Units, the Supplier, etc.)
  • Physical: Printable labels to affix to incoming inventory corresponding to the digital record you created.

It's quite simple. You tell Amplifier in advance exactly what's coming, and label it accordingly. It does Amplifier no good to learn what you're sending to us AFTER the inventory has arrived at our dock. By extension, it also doesn't help to know digitally what's coming only to receive a delivery of unlabelled boxes. In both cases, Amplifier personnel are forced to perform significant extra work identifying and counting pieces. If and when inventory randomly arrives at our dock without an ASN and/or the proper printed labels, it will be set aside as a Non-Compliant delivery and subject to significant delays in Receiving. (Read more about Supplier Compliant Shipments in our Routing Guide.)

The greek philosopher Heraclitus once wrote the immortal words "Panta rhei" which translates to "everything flows." ASNs ensure your inventory flows smoothly into Amplifier.

The Digital ASN

Creating Your First ASN

Creating ASNs is easy. Simply click the ASNs button (Truck Icon.) You'll be taken to this screen.

At the top right, click the Orange Button labelled "+ ASN." Every ASN requires the following:

  1. Contact Information
  2. Supplier Information
  3. ASN Information
  4. What are You Shipping to Us?
  5. Save ASN

 

Part I - Contact Information

Tell us who is creating this ASN and how we can contact them in the event we have questions about this ASN.

Part II - Supplier Information

Now choose what supplier is responsible for creating this Inventory. (If your supplier does not appear on the supplier pull down list, then you will need to add them using the suppliers tool.)



Part III - ASN Information

"ASN Information" section captures essential information about your Inventory for Amplifier and for you. Though many fields are not required, we strongly encourage you to fill out ASN Information to the best of your ability. ASN Information captures:

  1. PO # - The PO Number(s) related to this inventory (Very useful to your accounting department)
  2. Reference # - The job, order number, or other reference number that you will use to track it going forward
  3. BOL (Bill of Lading) # - The Bill of Lading # created by your Shipper
  4. Shipping Method - The method of delivery to Amplifier (Fedex, UPS, Yellow Freight LTL, CH Robinson LTL, etc.)
  5. Tracking # - The Tracking Number associated with this shipment
  6. Estimated Arrival Date - What day should Amplifier expect this to arrive (Important for Dock Scheduling)
  7. Additional Notes - Anything else we need to know about this shipment.

Part IV - What Are You Shipping To Us?

In this section, you detail exactly what is on its way to Amplifier. You begin by telling Amplifier what type of shipment this is:

  • Boxes Only - When only sending us a few boxes, choose "Boxes Only"
  • Pallets & Boxes - When you or your supplier is shipping inventory to Amplifier on pallets, select "Pallets & Boxes."

Let's assume you are sending Amplifier a Pallet. Select "Pallet & Boxes" and you will be given a chance to begin building "Pallet #1." You or your supplier can now begin telling us, BOX by BOX, just what you are sending to Amplifier.

Continuing with our previous example, we now have 6 distinct SKUs in our catalog representing the sizes of "Amplifier Tee - Orange" from Small through 3XL. Since we added those ITEMS to our Catalog, they are now eligible to be sent to Amplifier via the ASN Tool. Begin by typing the name or SKU of the first Item you are sending. After you enter a few characters, Amplifier will begin retrieving possible matches. In the example above, we typed "AMP" and were shown all six ITEMS we recently created.

Select the first SKU you wish to add. This will become "Box #1." Tell us exactly how many units of your ITEM are in the first box and then click "ADD."

You have now created your first box of your first ASN. Amplifier automatically makes this "Box #1."

Note that it is very common for one SKU to span many boxes. (e.g. 400 T Shirts might ship in 4 boxes of 100 each.) It is so common in fact that to make adding multiple Boxes of the same SKU easier, we added a button that allows you to "clone" a box and its contents. Simply click the Clone Icon shown at the end of the first line and we will duplicate that line for you. Clicking this three times gives us all four boxes of 100 units of Amplifer Tee - Orange S - AMP03346.

 

Since you or your supplier has likely already built the physical pallet of inventory, you'll want to match "Pallet #1" in our ASN tool to your first pallet. Let's say you also added 315 Medium Amplifier Tees to the same pallet. Simply add that new SKU on the next line (AMP03347) and tell us about each box. In this case, let's assume there were 3 boxes of 90 Mediums each, and one box for the remaining 45 of the Medium Tees. Add the Mediums by repeating the same process you added the Smalls, enter the SKU and the QUANTITY.

Note that while this is the First Box of Mediums you have added, it is the Fifth box on the pallet. After adding the first box of 90, CLONE it 3 times. You will now show that there are 360 units of Mediums headed to Amplifier. Since we already established that there were only 315, we need to adjust BOX #8 from the Cloned Value of 90 Units back down to 45 units. Simply click the number "90" under the QUANTITY column and the value becomes editable. Change 90 to 45. Your pallet will now digitally look like this:

Now let's pretend that these 8 boxes of 715 total shirts has now completely filled up your first pallet. Instead of adding another line entry below Box 8, we simply create a new pallet by clicking the "+ Add Pallet" button on the bottom left. Voila! Amplifier creates Pallet #2 as a blank slate ready for its own inventory. Repeat the process. In this example, let's add the following boxes to our pallet:

  1. Amplifier Tee - Orange - L - AMP03348 | 70 Units
  2. Amplifier Tee - Orange - L - AMP03348 | 70 Units
  3. Amplifier Tee - Orange - L - AMP03348 | 70 Units
  4. Amplifier Tee - Orange - XL - AMP03349 | 50 Units
  5. Amplifier Tee - Orange - XXL - AMP03350 | 25 Units
  6. Amplifier Tee - Orange - L - AMP03351 | 10 Units

Doing so will show Pallet #2 with the following Boxes:

It bears mentioning that you can also clone Pallets by clicking "Clone Pallet" under whatever pallet you wish to duplicate. This is especially useful when sending very large quantities of the same SKU that containerize and palletize in the exact same way every time. (e.g. Sending us 50,000 Units of the same DVD across 10 completely identical pallets of 50 boxes of 100 units.)

Once you've finished building all of your pallets, you are ready to submit the digital information about your ASN to Amplifier. Click SAVE to do so. You have now successfully completed the first part of your ASN submission! To confirm this, let's simply return to the ITEMS view and look at our catalog. Note the quantities now being shown under the QTY EXPECTED Column.

Everything we said was on its way is now showing up as EXPECTED. The Digital work is now finished, so let's get Physical.