Shipping Setup (Shippo)

FormFactories connects to Shippo to pull live carrier rates, buy shipping labels, and track packages, all from inside a project. This page walks through connecting your Shippo account, setting your ship-from address, and (optionally) letting staff bill a customer's own UPS or FedEx account.

Each enterprise uses its own Shippo account

Nothing here is shared between businesses. Every factory connects its own Shippo account and its own carrier accounts, so you set this up once for yourself.

Before you start

You will need:

• A Shippo account for your business.
• An admin (staff) account on FormFactories, so you can open Settings.
• (For customer-account billing only) your own UPS and/or FedEx account connected inside Shippo. More on that below.

Step 1: Connect your Shippo account

FormFactories talks to Shippo using an API token from your Shippo dashboard.

1. Log in to Shippo and go to Settings → API.
2. Copy your Live Token (a long string of letters and numbers). Shippo also offers a Test Token for trying things without buying real labels.
3. In FormFactories, open Settings → Features and find the Shippo row in the Integrations card.
4. Make sure its toggle is on, then click the gear icon next to Shippo to open Shippo Settings.
5. Paste your Live Token into the token field at the top.

TIP

The Shippo Settings dialog is where you set your token and, just below it, your ship-from address. Open it any time from the gear icon next to Shippo. The token stays hidden behind dots; use the eye icon to reveal it if you need to check it. Leave Allow customer account billing unchecked for now, it is an optional feature covered at the bottom of this page.

Step 2: Set your ship-from address

Rates and labels need to know where packages ship from.

In the same Shippo Settings dialog, scroll to the Ship-From Address section and enter your business's shipping origin: name, street, city, state, and ZIP. This is the address every rate and label ships from.

Once your token and ship-from address are saved, staff can pull live rates and buy labels on any project. That is everything most factories need. The rest of this page covers the optional customer-account billing feature.

Optional: Bill a customer's own carrier account

Some clients want their shipments billed to their UPS or FedEx account instead of paying you for shipping. FormFactories supports this "third-party billing": you create the label, and the carrier charges the customer's account, not yours. Your invoice charges $0 for shipping.

You need your OWN connected carrier account

Third-party billing only works when the label is created on your own UPS or FedEx account (a "bring your own account" carrier you connect in Shippo with your real account number and credentials).

It does not work on Shippo's shared "UPS by Shippo" or "FedEx by Shippo" accounts. The carrier blocks third-party billing on those. This is the single most common reason the feature "doesn't work," so it is worth getting right first.

Why you still need your own account

A shipping label always has to be issued through a real carrier account, the shipper of record. Third-party billing is just a note on that label that says "bill the charges to this other account number." The carrier only accepts that note when the label comes from an established account of your own.

Think of it like writing a check for a shipment: you still need your own checkbook to write the check, but you can fill in a different account to be billed. The carrier will not let you write that "bill someone else" instruction from a shared account.

Step A: Connect your own carrier account in Shippo

1. In Shippo, go to Carriers → Your accounts.
2. If your real UPS/FedEx account is listed with status Enabled, you are set.
3. If it shows Reconnect, click it and sign in again with your carrier credentials until it reads Enabled.
4. If it is not listed at all, click Add account and connect it with your real UPS/FedEx account number and login.

How to tell your own account from Shippo's shared one

On the Your accounts tab, look at each row:

• Your own account usually has a nickname you set, and a real carrier account number (like 345714456).
• Shippo's shared account has no nickname and an internal id like shippo_ups_account. This one cannot bill customer accounts.

If you see two UPS rows, the one you want is the real account (nickname plus a real number), not the shared one.

Step B: Turn on customer-account billing in FormFactories

1. In the Shippo Settings dialog, check Allow customer account billing.
2. Two fields appear: UPS account ID and FedEx account ID. These take the Object ID of your own connected carrier account from Shippo (the long Object ID, not the account number).
3. Click Attempt to retrieve from Shippo. FormFactories pulls your own connected accounts and fills these in for you. Check the values, then close the dialog with Done.

Checking the box reveals the two account fields and the retrieve button, all in the same Shippo Settings dialog, between the token and the ship-from address:

Entering the Object ID by hand

If you would rather enter it yourself, copy the Object ID from the carrier's row on Shippo's Your accounts tab (there is a copy button next to it) and paste it into the matching field in FormFactories.

That is it. On any project you can now set a customer's shipping account and generate a label billed to it. See Checkout & Shipping Labels for the day-to-day flow.

Troubleshooting

"shipment.extra.billing is not supported on the Shippo UPS Master account" (or the FedEx version): the account ID in your settings points at Shippo's shared account, not your own. Connect your own carrier account (Step A) and set its Object ID (Step B). This is the shared-account problem described above.

"Attempt to retrieve from Shippo" fills nothing, or shows an error: you have no own connected UPS/FedEx account in Shippo yet, only the shared one. Connect one in Shippo (Step A) and retrieve again.

No rates appear when generating a label: the Generate Shipping Label window shows the reason at the bottom. Common causes are an incomplete shipping address, an invalid customer account number, or the shared-account issue above.