Note
We recommend that you use the new integration DHL (New) instead of the shipping method DHL (Old) described here. For more information on the shipping method DHL (New), see this article.
The Xentral shipping method DHL (Old) offers you the following features:
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Feedback of the tracking number to your online stores and sales platforms
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Shipping of bulky goods
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Use of the service Cash on delivery
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Use of the service Age verification
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Deliveries by 8 am or 12 pm
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Printing of the return label
In order to send with an account via the DHL Business Customer Portal, you need to create an additional account in the same portal. The creation of an additional account is necessary because the login data of the main account must be changed regularly. If you do not create an additional account, an adjustment of the interface configuration would have to take place every time. The login data of this account will be required later to set up the shipping method DHL (Old) in Xentral.
You can view your contract details and API credentials at any time in your DHL business customer account, or you can contact your DHL account manager or refer to your last statement.
Note that only a * may be used as a special character in the user password.
Important
Make sure that the new user you create in the DHL Business Customer Portal is provided with all the rights shown in the following screenshot.
The settings for the DHL (Old) shipping method have to be carried out in the Administration > Settings > Shipping Methods > + NEW > DHL (Old) menu. Fill in all fields and also be sure to provide the API credentials. However, the cash on delivery settings only have to be provided if you are using this service for your deliveries.
The following table lists all available settings, as well as the appropriate explanations for each setting.
Einstellung |
Erläuterung |
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Designation |
Enter a name for the shipping method. This is displayed in the drop-down menu in Xentral, for example in the order, and can thus be selected as the shipping method for orders. It will also be available in delivery notes and when generating shipping labels. |
Type |
Specify the field name for the shipping method. You can generally choose this as you like, unless it is necessary for the assignment in the shipping logic of your online shop or on external sales platforms. We recommend that you keep the automatically entered type dhlversenden_1. |
Module |
Select the DHL (Old) option from the drop-down menu. |
Project |
Optionally, select a project if you want to create a separate DHL shipping method for each project. |
Active |
This setting activates the shipping method so that it can be selected in Xentral and used to ship goods. Important: Do not enable this setting until you have carried out all the necessary settings for DHL (Old). |
No postage check |
Activate this option to disable the postage check for the order. |
Printer parcel label |
From the drop-down menu, select the default printer to use to print shipping labels. |
Printer export |
Select the default printer to use to print export papers from the drop-down menu. |
Shipping mail to buyer |
Select the behavior of the shipping mail from the drop-down menu. The default behavior option causes a default tracking mail to be sent. No shipping mail means that no tracking mail is sent in this shipping method. Custom text template means that a separate text template is used for the shipping confirmation for this shipping method, regardless of the project and logistics process. |
User |
Enter your user name for the DHL Business Customer Portal. |
Signature |
Enter your password for your account in the DHL Business Customer Portal. |
EKP (billing number) |
Enter your valid DHL customer number, which can be found on every statement or in the business customer portal. Enter the number without the "EKP" component. |
Partner ID Domestic |
Enter your Partner ID Domestic. You can find this in your booked products in the Business Customer Portal (EKP + four-digit identifier). Use the last two digits here, for DHL-AT use the last four digits if an error message appears when entering two digits. |
Partner ID World |
Leave this field empty if the Partner ID World ID is the same as the Partner ID Domestic. Alternatively, enter the two-digit identifier or, for AT, the four-digit identifier. Note: Make sure to enter the two-digit or four-digit number both times. Do not mix the number of digits! |
Partner ID EU or Connect |
Enter the Partner ID EU. This field applies to the shipping of DE/AT to countries in Europe, so the full EKP with the extension 5401 in DE or 8701 in AT is important here. |
Always use world for EU |
Activate this option to always use the world interface for shipments to EU countries, i.e. for countries in the EU the Partner ID world will be used. |
Use premium shipping service |
Activate this option to use DHL premium shipping for each shipment. |
Return account |
Enter the 14-digit DHL Returns billing number for the returns you create. You can find your billing numbers in the DHL Business Customer Portal. This field is optional and is only required if you have booked the product Returns Account, i.e. classic returns and not Returns Online. Do not confuse this returns account with the separate DHL Returns Portal. This is not reflected by this setting. |
Pre-selection return label |
Activate this option to print a regular parcel label with the address stored in Xentral as the recipient. |
Sender Company / Street / Street No. / Postcode / City / Country / ISO Code / Telephone / Website/ Contact Person |
Enter the details of your company acting as the shipper here. These details must be the same as the details you have saved in the DHL Business Customer Portal. All fields regarding the shipper are the details of the parcel shipper printed on the shipping label. Sender Country: Enter germany for Germany and austria for Austria. Sender ISO Code: Enter DE for Germany and AT for Austria. The ISO code always consists of two digits. |
Cash on delivery bank tenant / account number / BLZ / bank name / IBAN / BIC / fee |
Enter the name of the bank account holder and the respective account details. This information must be the same as the data you have saved in the DHL business customer portal. This information is required for payment processing if you wish to offer the Cash on Delivery service. In addition, in the Activate cash on delivery fee field, indicate the correct cash on delivery fee. This amount will be added to the invoice amount and retained by DHL as a fee for performing the service. |
Export or other |
Enter a general description of your goods. This field is a required field for export shipments. This field also appears on the DHL export documents for the export shipments in question. |
Standard weight |
Enter the smallest possible weight in kg, e.g. 1 (= 1 kg). Alternatively, Xentral can also automatically access the actual product weights. For this purpose, these products weights must be completely maintained in the article data record in Xentral. The standard weight is automatically pre-filled when generating the parcel label. This weight determines the cost of the parcel rate, among other things. For a connected scale, this weight is considered the minimum weight. If less weight is used, the minimum weight is set in the parcel label. ImportantThe hard-coded standard weight is currently 2kg, which is the smallest parcel rate for DHL. If you want the weights to be added below 2kg, you can enter a small number as the default weight, such as 0.05, so that the weights are added. |
Round weight to integer |
If you activate this option, the weight will be rounded to an integer when you transfer it. If the decimal place of the weight is ≥ 0.5, it will be rounded up, otherwise rounded. Note: This option will only round up when you transfer it to the DHL API. There may still be a comma number when generating the parcel label in Xentral, but the DHL Business Customer Portal will already show the weight rounded. |
Standard length / width / height (in cm) |
Specify the standard length, width, and height that your packages usually have. Note: The values entered here will affect the DHL package rate. |
Standard package |
Enter the abbreviation of the product from the DHL Business Customer Portal (e.g. in DE: V01PAK or AT: V86PARCEL). In most cases, the abbreviation PL is correct here. |
Standard product |
Enter the abbreviation of the standard product from the DHL Business Customer Portal. For example, for Germany, this is V01PAK, for Austria V86PARCEL. |
Advance directive |
Select the advance order from the drop-down menu. This determines via API how the shipping label is handled in the event of undeliverability. For some low-priced items, it may be worth giving up the package, meaning to have it auctioned off by the shipping service provider. |
Bulky goods |
If you activate this option, Bulky Goods will be set for this shipment in the DHL Business Customer Portal. This will mark the package as being bulky goods and bill it according to the bulky goods tariff. This setting only works in combination with activated routing. If you do not always want this to be preselected for the shipping labels, enter a new shipping method for bulky goods in Xentral in which this option is activated, e.g. DHL Bulky Goods. |
Deactivate extra insurance |
Activate this option to disable DHL's additional insurance. This means that the package insurance is not automatically selected from the net price. You must also set this option manually in the parcel label dialogue in Xentral. Note: This option allows you to determine the cost of the package rate or the insurance premium, among other things. If you do not set the check mark, the check mark for DHL's additional insurance is automatically set in the parcel label. In this case, additional costs may apply. |
Activate DHL routing |
Activate the routing encoding for parcels. Without this encoding, DHL will charge a surcharge for incorrect addresses or non-route encoded addresses. Note: Please contact your account manager if the setting causes an error message. |
For export deliveries, send shipping costs from sales order |
Activate this option to accept the postage from the order for export shipments. |
Store tracking number |
Activate this option to automatically transfer the tracking number to sales orders and delivery notes in Xentral after creating the parcel label. |
Logging |
Activate this option to store special log files on the server, which you can check in more detail in the event of an error. |
DHL Austria is subject to the same conditions as DHL Germany. Be sure to change the following fields:
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Shipper country: Enter the two-digit ISO country code for Austria as the shipping country, which is AT.
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Partner ID Domestic: Enter your Partner ID Domestic. You can find this in your booked products in the DHL business customer portal (EKP + four-digit identifier). For DHL-AT (Austrian DHL portals), use the last four digits if a two-digit entry results in an error message.
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Leave this field empty if the Partner ID World ID is the same as the Partner ID Domestic. Alternatively, enter the two-digit identifier or, for AT, the four-digit identifier.
Note
Make sure to enter the two-digit or four-digit number both times. Do not mix the number of digits!
In addition, enter the country ISO Code AT in the master files using the following path: Administration > Settings > System > Basic Settings > Company Address .
Note
Parcels that are to be sent within Switzerland are handled via Post.CH.
The following section provides information about DHL shipping labels.
Once you have carried out all settings, you can test the parcel label printing in the shipping center or in an individual delivery note. Go to the delivery note and select the shipping method DHL (Old) from the corresponding drop-down menu in the Delivery note tab.
Afterwards, click on the Parcel label tab in the delivery note and print a shipping label for the included items using the Print parcel label button.
After your trial print is complete, you can cancel the parcel label in the DHL Business Customer Portal. Refer to the following chapter for more information.
To avoid invoicing the parcel label fee, cancel the label directly in the DHL Business Customer Portal after the trial print. First, log in with your login information, then go to the Package & Goods section and click Shipment Summary.
You can find your parcel label in the Shipment complete tab.
To delete the label, simply click on the Delete icon on the corresponding line to cancel the shipment.
In case of shipments with the age verification service, the delivery agent checks the age of the recipient before handing over the goods. For more information on the service, please find a summary here with DHL (German only).
Important
Make sure you have activated the age verificationservice as part of your booked product in advance in the DHL Business Customer Portal so that it can be used for your shipments and the required notice for the parcel delivery agent can be printed on the DHL parcel label.
In order to use age verification for your DHL shipments, the Age rating setting must be carried in the item data of each product that requires this check upon delivery. These settings must be made before creating the parcel label.
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Log in to Xentral.
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Open the Product module.
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Open the item to be shipped with the age verification service.
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In the Product tab, scroll down to the Other settings area.
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For the Age rating setting, select one of the options from age 16 or from age 18.
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Click on Save.
After you have carried out the settings described above for the items in question, the Age verification checkbox is automatically activated when you generate the parcel label for sales orders that contain these items. This option is displayed at the bottom of the parcel label dialogue.
DHL (Old) allows for automatic printing of the CP-71 parcel label and the CN-23 customs declaration for non-EU export deliveries. The latter is automatically printed out for export deliveries when printing the parcel label. On the customs declaration you can find the customs tariff numbers of the products included in the shipment.
Note
Note the following for customs document CN-23:
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The customs document is automatically made available via the interface and electronically declared to DHL
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A summation of all products takes place, including customs tariff numbers, weight, summary and shipping costs
You can find a list of all changes that have taken effect since 01.01.2021 here (German only).
Tip
This process has been improved in terms of listing items, customs tariff numbers, weights and shipping costs using the DHL shipping method, consider changing your shipping method from DHL (Old) to DHL.
It is possible that you see this error message: "DHL Login failed, the user of the web service could not be authenticated"
At irregular intervals, DHL will ask you to assign a new password, so you will receive this error message when you try to print the parcel label in Xentral. To print the label again, follow these steps:
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XentralShipping method DHL (Old)
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Log in to Xentral.
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Open the menu Administration > Settings > Shipping Methods > Overview > Pen icon to edit the DHL (Alt) shipping method.
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Verify and apply the DHL user name (business customer_api (Send/Intraship username)) and the signature representing the DHL password (Dhl_ep_test1 (Send/IntrashipPassword))
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DHL Business Customer Portal
Log in to the DHL Business Customer Portal with this information from Xentral. You will be asked to assign a new password. When you log in, you will see a message that the password is incorrect. You will then receive two fields to assign a new password directly when you log in. Enter a new password directly here and enter it in Xentral.
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Enter the new password in Xentral
Finally, enter this password in the Signature field in the DHL (Alt) shipping method, then click Save.
DHL Warenpost is a service of Deutsche Post DHL, which allows you to send small goods up to a certain size and weight inexpensively.
You can book insurance for this here and use the tracking number to track your shipment.You can find more information here (German only).
To be able to send parcels to customers via Warenpost in Xentral, create a new shipping method for DHL (Old), explicitly specifying the following standard product type for the goods mail:
This means that each product is a separate shipping method within the module DHL (Old), but has different names/types.