Fulfillment 3PLs

3PL fulfillment software: what a fulfillment 3PL needs

Your clients want to see orders and stock, your team wants fewer touches, and your retail customers want clean EDI. This site walks through each need.

Focus areas

Client portals and what to show in them
Billing that keeps up with order volume
EDI basics for retail customers
Integrating with storefronts and carriers

Built around the fulfillment day

Fulfillment work is high volume and low margin. Every extra touch costs money, every missed ship date costs a client. Software for this kind of 3PL has to handle orders from many storefronts, keep clients informed without phone calls, and exchange EDI messages with retailers.

We break that down into portals, billing, EDI and integrations, and for each one we describe what good looks like and what to ask a vendor.

Docks, trailers and the floor behind an order

Orders leave a fulfillment building on trucks, so here are three screens from the Microsive demo platform, all demo data. One shows trailers at dock doors, one a planned trailer load, and one a selected forklift and its task.

3D warehouse management system yard view of a demo warehouse exterior with trailers parked at dock doors and labelled door groups (demo data) — Yard view in the Microsive demo platform. Demo data, not a real warehouse.

3D truck load planner trailer view of a semi-truck with colour coded pallets grouped by stop and axle weight tags (demo data) — Trailer view in the Microsive truck load planner. Demo data, not a real load.

3D warehouse management system forklift detail panel for a selected forklift and its put-away task in a demo warehouse, with simulated telemetry fields (demo data) — Forklift detail in the Microsive demo platform. Battery, speed and charger fields are simulated. Demo data, not a real warehouse.

See Cargohold

Fulfillment topics

01Client portal

3PL Client Portal: What to Show

The screens, actions and permissions a fulfillment client portal needs, ordered by how many client questions each one answers.

Updated 12 Oct 20264 min read

02EDI

EDI for 3PL Fulfillment Basics

What EDI is, which messages a fulfillment 3PL usually exchanges for retail customers, and what to settle before you promise EDI to a client.

Updated 12 Oct 20265 min read

03Requirements

Fulfillment Software Requirements

Follow one order through your building to list what fulfillment software must do to start and what can wait, then test it with a demo script.

Updated 12 Oct 20264 min read

04Fulfillment fees

Per Order Fulfillment Fees

The pieces of a per order fulfillment fee, a hypothetical order priced line by line, and how to show those lines on a client invoice.

Updated 12 Oct 20265 min read