A fulfillment provider is the service that actually ships your orders — a 3PL like ShipHero or ShipStation, or a sales channel handling its own fulfillment, such as Shopify. You can connect one or more fulfillment providers in Acenda and assign each one to the sales channels and warehouses it should fulfill for.
Step 1: Add a fulfillment provider
In the sidebar, under CHANNELS, click Integrations.
In the Fulfillment Providers section, click + New.
Select your fulfillment provider from the list and click + Add.
Click Edit next to the new integration to open its settings.
Note: Self Fulfillment isn't listed here. If you ship orders yourself without a 3PL, you don't need a fulfillment provider integration for it.
Step 2: Configure the integration
Every fulfillment provider has a few settings in common, organized under these tabs:
General: the switch to enable the integration, and a name to tell it apart if you connect more than one instance of the same provider.
Notifications: one or more email addresses (press Enter after each one) to receive alerts about problems such as invalid shipping addresses, bad tracking numbers, or orders and fulfillments that can't flow through.
Authorization: the API Key and API Secret you generate in your fulfillment provider's own admin after adding Acenda as a partner. Some providers connect by Consent instead — for those, this tab walks you through authorizing Acenda directly.
Further down, you'll typically also see the Sales Channel ID(s) and Warehouse ID(s) this provider should handle. Depending on the provider, you may also see some of these settings (the exact labels can vary slightly):
Actions: the timing of shipment, ship advice and order pushes to and pulls from the provider. We recommend leaving these on their defaults.
Store ID: optional. Only fill it in if you have more than one store inside the same provider account.
Order Number Assignment: which order number Acenda sends the provider: the external ID (the full sales channel order number), the purchase order ID (the shorter sales channel order number), or the Acenda order number. We recommend the external ID.
Store Information: your store name in the provider.
Customer Configuration: turn this on to create customer records from your orders. Choose Create Customer From Marketplace Name to include the marketplace name, or Create Customer From Order Customer to record just the customer's details.
Finding your IDs: The Sales Channel ID is shown at the top of that sales channel's own Edit page (CHANNELS → Integrations, then Edit). The Warehouse ID is shown in the ID column on the Warehouses page.
When finished, click Save.
Provider-specific settings: Shopify Fulfillment
If you're connecting Shopify as a fulfillment provider (rather than as a sales channel), two extra sections apply only to Shopify:
Order Configuration: choose decrement_obeying_policy to stop an order from reaching Shopify when an item shows zero inventory, or decrement_ignoring_policy / bypass to let it through regardless (inventory can then show a negative quantity in Shopify).
Functionality Control: toggle whether Acenda pulls inventory and pricing from Shopify.
For the rest of the Shopify connection, see Acenda and Shopify Integration: Step-by-Step Guide.
Step 3: Assign provider warehouses to a sales channel
In the sidebar, under CHANNELS, click Integrations.
Click Edit next to the sales channel.
Open the Settings tab and scroll down to Warehouse Details.
Click + Add Warehouse Detail and enter the Channel Warehouse and the matching Acenda Warehouse. Repeat for every warehouse this channel should pull from.
In Routing Modes, set how Acenda chooses a warehouse for this channel's orders. Acenda works through the modes as a fallback chain:
Ship Complete: use a single warehouse that can fill the whole order by itself.
Priority / Proximity: if no one warehouse can ship complete, fall back to the order you set in Warehouse Details, or to the warehouse closest to the recipient.
Default: the final fallback when none of the above resolve a warehouse.
Click Save.
Important: Routing Mode only decides which of your mapped warehouses ships an order on this channel — it doesn't affect which items are listed there. For the rest of the channel setup, see Connecting Sales Channels: How to Integrate with Acenda.
Troubleshooting
Integration shows red or unhealthy: For ShipStation, this is almost always an expired API key. See Shipstation API Keys for how to generate a new one.
Orders aren't shipping from the warehouse you expected: Check the order of your Warehouse Details mappings and your Routing Mode — Acenda works through them in that order, not by which warehouse happens to have the most stock.
Can't find a Sales Channel ID or Warehouse ID: The Sales Channel ID is at the top of the sales channel's Edit page; the Warehouse ID is in the ID column on the Warehouses page.
Don't see the provider you expected in the list: Double-check it isn't Self Fulfillment — that option ships without a provider integration and isn't listed under Fulfillment Providers.
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Still stuck? Contact Acenda Support and tell us which fulfillment provider and sales channel are involved.