Add Commercial Carrier Accounts

Overview

This page describes how to add a commercial carrier account for use with the APIs. For operations that retrieve carrier information, see instead Carrier Rules and Information.

Merchants can add commercial carrier accounts for use with the APIs in either of the following ways:

When a merchant adds a carrier account, Pitney Bowes verifies the account using the information the merchant provides and receives a unique set of credentials from the carrier for access to the account. Pitney Bowes creates a shipperCarrierAccountId to identify the account to the APIs. If the merchant adds multiple accounts with the same carrier, you must pass this ID in the X-PB-Shipper-Carrier-AccountId request header when the merchant performs an operation with the carrier. You can retrieve the ID through the Get Merchant Accounts API, as described in this FAQ.

Currently, merchants can add FedEx® and UPS® carrier accounts.

Add a Carrier through the Merchant Portal

  1. Open Merchant Portal.

  2. Click the Shipper Carriers link at the top of the page.

  3. Locate the carrier in the list and click Add Account.

  4. Enter the required information about the existing carrier account, including the account address and other information. The information required depends on the carrier.

Upon a successful registration, Pitney Bowes creates a shipperCarrierAccountId to identify the carrier account. To retrieve the ID, issue the Get Merchant Accounts API, as described in this FAQ. If the merchant adds multiple accounts with the same carrier, you must pass the ID in the X-PB-Shipper-Carrier-AccountId request header when the merchant performs an operation with the carrier.

Add a Carrier through the Merchant Account APIs

  1. Issue the Carrier License Agreement API to present the text of the license agreement to the merchant. Obtain the merchant’s approval for the agreement.

    For UPS, save the text of the license agreement to pass in the Add Carrier Account API.

  2. Issue the Add Carrier Account API to register the merchant’s carrier account with Pitney Bowes. The API call requires the following:

    • The account number for the carrier account.

    • The Ship From address as it appears on the carrier account.

    • The address for the primary contact on the carrier account.

    • Additional account information if the carrier is UPS. See Carrier Account Input Parameters.

  3. Store the shipperCarrierAccountId returned by the Add a Carrier Account API. You pass this ID in the X-PB-Shipper-Carrier-AccountId request header when the merchant performs an operation that uses this carrier. You can always retrieve this ID through the Get Merchant Accounts API, as described in this FAQ.

Remove a Carrier Account

To deactivate a carrier account, contact Client Support at ClientSupportTechServices@pb.com.