Creating FBA Forwarding Work Orders (Sending Inventory to Amazon)
An FBA Forwarding work order ships inventory from a Cahoot warehouse directly to Amazon fulfillment centers. Start by creating your shipment plan in Amazon Seller Central, using the address of the Cahoot job location that holds your inventory as the Ship From address. Then create the work order in Cahoot.
Creating the Work Order
Go to Work Orders → Add New → FBA Forwarding, then follow the standard work order creation steps. Two things differ on FBA Forwarding work orders:
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Preferred Shipping Carrier is Amazon Account. Amazon's carriers and freight providers keep your shipment compliant with their delivery requirements.
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Quantities must match how your inventory is cased at the warehouse. You already set a case pack in your Amazon shipment plan — what matters here is that it matches the Master Case Pack configured in Cahoot. If your inventory never arrived at Cahoot in master case packs, the warehouse builds the cases and sends you the box dimensions and the SKU quantity per box, which you then use to complete your Amazon shipment plan and generate your labels. Click a SKU name to check. If the two don't match, or you're sending mixed cases, submit the work order and ask in Conversations.
- Download your FBA labels from Seller Central in 4x6 thermal format — any other size will delay your shipment — and upload them to the Shipping Documents section when you submit. The one exception is when the warehouse needs to assemble cases first. In that case, submit without labels and upload them once we've confirmed your case contents.
Small Parcel (SPD) Shipments
Small parcel shipments are individual boxes, each labeled for delivery. Each box must stay under 50 lbs and under 25 inches on any side, unless it holds an oversize item.
- Select Small Parcel under How Would You Like to Ship.
- Upload your FBA Box Labels and FBA Shipping Labels to Shipping Documents.
- Submit the work order. Once approved, the warehouse affixes both labels to each box and ships them.
The work order is marked Completed when all boxes have shipped.
LTL (Palletized) Shipments
LTL shipments are cases stacked onto pallets and collected by Amazon's freight provider. This path moves back and forth between Seller Central and Cahoot, because Amazon needs pallet dimensions that don't exist until the warehouse has built the pallets.
- Select LTL, upload your FBA Box Labels, and submit the work order.
- Cahoot approves the work order. The warehouse affixes a carton label to each box, palletizes them, and adds the pallet dimensions and weights to the work order under Packing Information.
- In Seller Central, enter those pallet dimensions and weights, set your Freight-Ready Date, and generate your FBA Pallet Labels and Bill of Lading. Amazon releases the BOL the morning of your Freight-Ready Date.
- Upload the pallet labels and BOL to Shipping Documents. The warehouse affixes a label to all four sides of each pallet and the status changes to Pending Pickup.
- The carrier collects the pallets on your Freight-Ready Date and the work order is marked Completed.
If Your Amazon and Cahoot SKUs Don't Match
The warehouse matches FBA labels to boxes using SKU names or barcodes. If a SKU is named differently in Seller Central than in Cahoot, and you're sending more than one item, the warehouse can't tell which label belongs to which product.
This is uncommon. If it applies to your account, upload a table listing each Amazon SKU alongside its Cahoot SKU under Box Labels in Shipping Documents, then send a Conversations message letting us know the names differ.