Manifests & SCAN Forms

A manifest is a physical or electronic document that provides a list of a specific day's shipments. It typically contains a barcode that the driver can scan when they arrive to pick up your packages, allowing them to scan a single document to register all shipments, rather than scanning each shipment individually. Some carriers require you to manifest your shipments, making the pickup process much more efficient

Manifests will always be specific to a carrier, a warehouse location, and a ship date. If you ship with multiple carriers or have multiple warehouses, you may need to create multiple manifests. If your carrier requires a manifest, then you must create a daily manifest whether you have one package or hundreds.

About Manifests in ShipStation

You can close and print your manifests directly in the ShipStation UI, or you can use the ShipStation API /v2/manifests endpoint.

Creating a manifest with ShipStation API consists of sending a request that specifies the labels you would like to include in the manifest using the /v2/manifests endpoint.

You can then query any manifests you've created using the available query parameters, get a specific manifest using the manifest_id property, or get a specific manifest request using the manifest_request_id property. These properties and parameters are returned in the response to your Create Manifest call.

Explicit vs Implicit Manifests

You may explicitly or implicitly specify which labels to include in a manifest.

• Explicit manifests specify exactly which labels to include in the manifest using label_ids.
• Implicit manifests specify criteria for including labels in the manifest. You can specify by carrier_id, warehouse_id, and ship_date. You can also indicate specific labels to exclude from the manifest even if they meet the criteria using the excluded_label_ids property. We call this an implicit manifest since you do not specify the exact labels to include.

Electronic vs Physical Manifests

You will need to consider whether the carrier you are using supports electronically submitted manifests or if it requires you to download and print a physical document.

If your carrier supports electronically submitted manifests, we will automatically create a daily manifest in the format required by the carrier and submit it on your behalf.

If a physical manifest is required, you will need to create the manifest with ShipStation. The response will include a URL you can use to download the PDF file. You will then need to print it and present it to the carrier when they come to pick up the shipments.

Manifest Daily

For most carriers, you must create the manifests on the same calendar date as the labels’ ship date. If you try to generate a manifest that includes labels with a prior ship date, you will receive an error.

Example Manifest

This is an example of a USPS SCAN form. It lists the shipment date, shipped from location, volume of shipments by service class, and includes a scannable barcode for driver acceptance.

Manifest Requirements by Carrier

Manifest requirements will differ depending on the carrier you use. Some carriers require a manifest while others make them optional. Some carriers do not support manifests at all. Many carriers require you to print a PDF document and present it to the driver upon pickup. Some carriers support electronically submitted manifests, in which case we will automatically submit the manifest for you.

We've included a list of some of our most used carriers with their requirements below. If your carrier is not listed here and you are unsure about their manifest requirements, be sure to contact them for details.