Compare Purolator rate estimates, book shipments, print labels and share tracking with your customers, all from the system your orders are already in.
Purolator is a Canadian carrier, which means rate estimates depend on postal code, weight and the service a customer is willing to pay for. The integration answers those questions at the point an order is placed, then carries the same data through to booking, printing and tracking. A Purolator online store integration is what keeps the customer-facing options and the carrier's own services from drifting apart.
Rate estimates, label printing, tracking, pickups and cancellations, handled from Softpal instead of a second browser tab.
The order record supplies the address, weight and service, and Softpal sends it to Purolator as a booking. What comes back is the tracking number and the label, printed on the stock your printers use. Nothing has to be copied from a rate estimate into the carrier portal afterwards, which is where address typos usually creep in.
Cancellations have a narrow window in any carrier, and narrower still for Purolator, because collection is scheduled rather than incidental. The booking can be cancelled from the same screen while it is still open, and the reason recorded against the order.
Purolator tracking information is pulled into Softpal as the parcel moves, so customers can check a shipment from your own tracking page rather than being redirected to the carrier. Service centres answering a query see the same scan history your customer does.
Where Purolator does not push updates, Softpal asks the API again after a set interval. It is the least interesting part of any integration and the one most likely to be configured badly: too short an interval multiplies requests across every open parcel for very little extra accuracy.
Rate cards, service codes and account credentials are configured per Purolator account, so a negotiated contract applies to your shipments and nobody else's. Shipping management system integration is where this earns its keep, because the account selection happens per order rather than per week.
Pickups, manifests and multi-piece shipments stay attached to the order they belong to, and a booking can still be placed by hand where a consignment needs something unusual. Service availability is checked before an order is committed, so an undeliverable postal code is caught before the customer pays for shipping.
The fetch rate is how often your system calls the Purolator API. Five minutes suits a busy order book; an hour is enough when shipments go out in batches. Rates can also be fetched on a trigger, such as a new order or a status change, rather than on a fixed clock.
Purolator accepts pickup requests through its API, so goods ready at an address can be flagged for collection from your system. The request stays linked to the consignments it covers, which removes the argument about whether a particular parcel was in the collection.
The estimated delivery date comes back from Purolator after the shipment has been accepted. Distance, the service selected, Purolator's network and the time the order took to process all contribute, so the estimate is firmer once the parcel is actually moving.
Purolator covers cross-border shipments as well as Canadian ones, along with the export documentation and customs brokerage a border crossing requires. That means an overseas order can be quoted and booked in the same pass as a domestic one, with tracking that continues past the border.
The Purolator charges recorded in accounts payable are compared with Purolator's statements, line by line. Collecting them through the API instead of re-keying a PDF is what makes weight corrections and surcharges visible while they can still be queried.
More than one Purolator account can be active, and the account used is picked by rule rather than by hand. Consignments can be split by weight slab, one account for parcels under 5 kg and another above, or assigned by region with a default account covering everything else.
