Create Manifests

What are Manifests, End of Day, or Scan Forms?

Many manifests are sent electronically to the carrier when you create a label, and often physical manifests are not necessary. Carriers receive the package details, shipping date, and other information that help them plan your package's delivery when you create a label.

However, some providers, like USPS require manifests when shipping large numbers of packages. Think about how long it would take for a delivery driver to arrive, pick up 100 packages, and individually scan each of them.

A manifest exists so the carrier can scan the manifest and check in all the packages being shipped.

Info

When Do You Make a Manifest?

Manifests exist to increase the efficiency of a postal worker and warehouse staff. Creating a manifest allows the warehouse to "close out" what they're going to send with the postal worker and move to a new grouping.

Model Basics

Property	Description
carrier_id	string, required The Carrier ID you wish to create a manifest for.
excluded_label_ids	string array Use this to exclude any labels created with this ship_date that will not be shipped today.
warehouse_id	string, required The Warehouse ID this manifest is being created for.
ship_date	date string, (ISO 8601 Standard), required 2019-07-25T15:24:46.657Z

Warning

Use warehouse_id instead of ship_from when creating a manifest

Each ShipEngine manifest is created for a specific warehouse, so you'll need to provide the warehouse_id rather than the ship_from address. You can create a warehouse for each location that you want to create manifests for.

Example

POST /v1/manifests

curl -iX POST https://api.shipengine.com/v1/manifests \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-H 'API-Key: __YOUR_API_KEY_HERE__' \
-d '
{
  "carrier_id": "se-123890",
  "excluded_label_ids": [],
  "warehouse_id": "se-11921",
  "ship_date": "2019-07-25T05:00:00.000Z"
}'

{
  "form_id": "se-551",
  "manifest_download": {
      "href": "https://api.shipengine.com/v1/downloads/1/aksjdifahffj2_2/manifest-551.pdf"
    }
  }
}