help.csg3pl.com.au – CSG3PL User Guide

Logging in

Firstly, go to csg3pl.com/login on your web browser. It should take you to this page.

From here, type in the Username and Password that you were sent via email when your credit application was received and processed.

This will take you through to the Dashboard, and from there you will see the following tabs on the left-hand side of the screen.

Creating products

The first thing you’ll need to do is create products. These are the products that you’re going to be shipping to our warehouse, and which we will be distributing to your customers. There are two ways of creating products.

Guides

Via CSV file

Click the ‘Import Products’ button. This will take you to a page where you will see a paperclip icon, and the text ‘Select CSV file’. Beneath that there is a button for downloading our template file ‘Download Sample CSV’.

The sample CSV file has the following headings:

Name
This is the name of the product, e.g. ‘Floor lamp – Beige’
Description
Due to the way the data is stored, you won’t see this field in the products page. Please enter any data, such as whatever you entered as the ‘Name’ or just ‘1’ for every product. You can’t leave this field blank, or the file will not be successful.
Barcode
This is the UPC 13-digit barcode for your product. If you have a system where your boxes have a general barcode (e.g. a box of hats with the barcode 1234567891234, and each hat inside the box has its own barcode, 1234567890001, 1234567890002) then use the specific product barcode, not the general one. Our pickers will be scanning these barcodes when they pick your orders as confirmation that it is the right product. Please ensure that (a) your barcodes are 13 digits, (b) no two products share a barcode and (c) if there is a barcode on the product itself that the barcode you put in our system matches that.
Sku
This is the unique product identifier. Once you have created a product in our system, its SKU cannot be edited or deleted. Ideally, these should be brief and clear, and give an indication of which product they refer to. (e.g. for a Table of Medium size, coloured Brown, TBL-M-BR is a better SKU than vs5430001-np-1). When our system receives your orders, it will identify the products with this code, and this is the code our pickers will see when they are picking your orders.
ItemPerPack
This one can be confusing. If you are selling basketballs, and you want to create a basketball as a product in our system, the ‘ItemPerPack’ is 1 because this is sold as one unit, not a package of multiple units. On the other hand, if you are selling bars of soap, and a customer orders 5 bars, and those 5 bars are all packaged together in one small carton, then the ItemPerPack for that product will likely be 5, since they are purchasing 5 units, but those 5 units are sold together as one box. You can call or email our team with any questions about this.
height
The following headings that stat with ‘Dimensions’ are the measurements of the product itself. If you ship us bars of soap which are roughly 10x5x4, those are the dimensions you will enter in dimensions.height/width/length. However, if those bars of soap (as in the previous example) come in a box which is roughly 20x5x10, then those are the dimensions you will enter in package.height/width/length. If you can’t measure your products when you are creating them, it is ok to just enter ‘1’ in each field until you can. Dimensions can always be edited later.
Remember, length/width/height are all measured in centimetres, and weight is measured in kilograms, regardless of how big or small or heavy or light your products are.
weight
See ‘Dimensions.height’
width
See ‘Dimensions.height’
volume
If you can calculate this, you can enter it in for the product. However, the volume is less important than the weight and another dimensions.
length
See ‘Dimensions.height’
height
Whereas the ‘dimensions’ fields were about the product itself, the ‘package’ fields are about the box that those products come to us in. If your stock is all going to be sold individually (as opposed to in the box which you ship it to us in), then these fields aren’t very important (as in the example of the basketballs). If you don’t know what data to enter here, please just enter ‘1’ in each of the ‘package’ fields.
width
See ‘package.height’
depth
See ‘package.height’
lenth
See ‘package.height’

The key thing with CSV files is to have data in every field, and not leave anything blank. Also, make sure you don’t put any commas in the data, since a CSV file is comma separated, so it will treat your comma as an indicator that a new data cell has begun, which will mess everything up.

Via ‘New Product’ button

This way is much simpler and is better if you only have a small handful of products to enter into our system.

You will see the following interface, which essentially is just the same data as the CSV file, but as an interface. All the same advice applies here. This interface will let you create products with as little as a SKU and a Product Name (and whilst this is possible, you should aim to fill in the rest of the dimensions data as soon as you can).

Once you have created your products via either method, they will show up in the products screen with the status ‘DRAFT’. This means that you have done you part, and it is up to our team to see your products and publish them. This also gives us a chance to identify any potential mistakes made before we start using the product entries you have created.

Placing a Purchase Order

Once we have published your products, they will show as ‘No Stock’. This means that they are now active and ready to have stock received against them. A ‘Purchase Order’ is what you use when you ship your products to our warehouse, it is what we use to receive the products and assign them to a racking location in our warehouse. As with creating products, Purchase Orders can be created with a CSV file, or by interface.

Guides

Via CSV file

If you click ‘Import Purchase order’, you will be taken to the screen that lets you upload a CSV file. However, there are some other fields to look at first.

PO Number
We always recommend making your PO Numbers nice and orderly, e.g. if a customer called ‘Bed, Bath & Towel’ created a PO, they could start with BBT001, then BBT002, etc. This helps us keep track of all the purchase orders in an orderly fashion.
Vendor Id
This has to be a series of numbers, and not letters. We always use 1001 for this field, but genuinely any number would be fine. The purpose of this field would be for tracking which vendors you source your products from when you send them to us, but no matter what number you put here it won’t mess things up, as long as there are no letters.
Vendor Name
For this field, just enter the name of your company, etc ‘Infinity Furniture’.
Date of Receiving
This date should be the date that your shipment will arrive at our warehouse, so that we will have an idea of when to expect your products, and so that we can have the appropriate unloading teams ready to go.
Received Type
This will give you a drop-down box with different options for describing the manner in which the products will be shipped, e.g. ‘20 ft container, palletised’ or ‘Unload off truck – mixed’.
Pallet Quantity
Similarly, this field should be used to indicate how many pallets of stock (or if your stock is not on pallets, roughly how many pallets worth of boxes you are sending us.

Finally, you attach the CSV file itself. The template is available there for download, and has only four headings:

SKU
See ‘Sku’
Quantity
This field is for what quantity of that product you are shipping us. The quantity should be for how many ‘units’, so how many basketballs, not how many boxes of basketballs.
Batch
This field, and the following field ‘Expiry’, are both moot for many products, such as basketballs and hats. Batch and Expiry are mostly important for products that have a best before date, such as food products. The other use for batch numbers is identifying products for recall if there is a defect identified across a batch of products. If this field is irrelevant for your product, please enter ‘1’.
Expiry
Just the same as Batch, this field only matters for products that expire. If yours don’t, make this field ‘1’.

Via ‘New Purchase Order’ button

Just like with products, the New Purchase Order button shows you all the same fields from the Import Purchase Order screen. However, instead of adding the products with a file, you add them one by one, by typing in the name of the product, or by entering text, backspacing it, and choosing from the list of products that will appear.

You can treat Expiry in the same manner (1 if irrelevant). The expiry date will be the current date by default.

Once you have created a Purchase Order by either method, check it on the Purchase Orders page, and make sure that the ‘total items’ is correct. This means if you are sending us 6 different SKUs, the ‘total items’ should be 6, not the total quantity of all the items in the PO. If you see 4 when it should be 6, contact us to tell us to ignore that PO, and we can help you troubleshoot why it didn’t work.

Once the stock arrives in our warehouse, we will use the Purchase Order you have created to receive in the stock, and assign it to a racking location / pick bin location.

Placing an Order

Whereas a Purchase Order is a ‘receiving order’, the Orders tab is for ‘sales orders’, i.e. the orders your customers place for your products.

You can link your Shopify store to CSG, so that when an order comes through in Shopify, it will automatically come through to CSG. Alternately, you can also place orders manually by clicking ‘New Order’.

Order ID
The order ID will usually be the Shopify/Ebay/Amazon order ID that you will use for keeping track of which order is which, because our CSG system will generate its own order number that we use internally. If you are creating an order manually, you can put anything you like in this field.
Shipping Method
You can choose between standard shipping and expedited. Some couriers/destination combinations will not work, e.g. you can’t ship to NSW with Couriers Please and select Expedited.
Customer shipping information
In the customer information, the Address fields are crucial. Ensure that there are no commas in the address field because the data is stored in CSV files, so that same error mentioned earlier will happen again. If the address is a unit, there is a unit field where you can enter that information.
Otherwise, it is acceptable to just put 2/34 White Street, or Unit 2/27-29 Johnston Street, or whatever it is. The ‘state’ field should be filled in the abbreviated style (VIC not Victoria, NSW not New South Wales).
Order items
Finally, the products can be selected the same way as before in the purchase order. ‘Cost per item’ is more for record keeping than anything else, what is typed here won’t change how much you are charged, and no one (the courier / customer) will see this value. You can leave it at 1 if you want.

Order Status

Guides

New

The order has been placed, and we have received it in our system.

Rating Failed

At least one of the elements of this order has an error that has made it unable to be rated for shipment costs. This could be caused by (a) incorrect address, (b) no products included in the order, (c) the product entered has invalid dimensions and therefore cannot be rated (e.g. 1cm x .5cm x .5cm), or (d) invalid combination of options for courier (this will occur if you select Express shipping with Couriers Please for a state other than VIC, since only standard delivery is supported interstate.) If the issue is with the address or the courier, you can just change the details and click ‘update address’ or ‘re-rate’. However, if the issue is with the SKUs (no products selected, wrong products selected, etc) then you will need to cancel the order and re-create it, since you cannot edit the SKUs in an order.

Address Check/Invalid Address

This is usually caused by a simple mistake in the way the address was entered. The following are the most common mistakes:

State has been entered in full (Victoria) rather than just the three-letter abbreviation (VIC).
An address with a unit has been entered incorrectly (e.g. ‘Unit 3, 5 Rowson St’ instead of ‘3/5 Rowson St’). It is very important that there are no commas in an address, because the data will be exported in a .csv file, and commas in that data will ruin the data.
A P.O. box address has been entered with insufficient detail (e.g. ‘PO Box 234678 Cheltenham’, rather than ‘158 Main Rd (and then on the second line) PO Box 234678’

Rated

The order has been approved by our team and the system has given us ratings for how much the couriers will charge us to ship the order

Shipment Failed

This is very similar to RATING FAILED and may occur for the same reasons.

Shipment Ready

This is the status that comes after ‘RATED’, and it indicates that the tracking code has successfully been created. At this point, you will be able to view the order and see the tracking code, even though it will not have been picked yet.

Processing

This comes after ‘SHIPMENT READY’ and indicates that the order has been sent through to our WMS, ready to print. It will be printed, picked and scanned.

Manifested

Once the order has been picked and scanned, it will display as ‘MANIFESTED’. This means we have completed the order, put the label on it, and placed it in the location in our warehouse ready for collection by the courier.

Pending Closure

This means that the order has been cancelled, and will not be processed

On Hold

Any order with this status we will not touch. Unlike PENDING_CLOSURE, orders that are ON_HOLD can be taken off hold and can be processed.

FAQ

How do I cancel an order?

Orders can be cancelled at any stage including New, Open, Rated, Shipment Ready, Invalid Address, Address Error, Address Check, Rating Failed, Shipment Failed, On Hold until Shipment Ready. However, once the order reaches Processing, Closed or Manifested, it can no longer be cancelled.