APC Overnight consignments booked straight from the packing bench

APC Overnight works differently from the big national parcel carriers. You deal with a local depot, which collects from your warehouse and feeds consignments into a network of depots linked through a central hub, so they can be delivered next day by the depot nearest your customer. That model shapes what booking automation has to get right.

Zestcode Automation builds bespoke order platforms that book APC Overnight consignments from packed orders, print a label for every parcel and save the tracking number to your ERP, all before the depot driver arrives. The finished platform is your company’s property, not a subscription.

Why the depot collection time is the real deadline

With a depot-based network, the van turning up is the hard stop. Anything not booked, labelled and on the dock by then misses the trunk to the hub and goes a day late. In the warehouse, the order queue on the rugged Android devices is sorted by delivery date and highlights orders that must be packed before your depot’s collection time. Booking then happens the moment an order is marked packed, so the office isn’t working through a backlog at four o’clock.

Getting ready for automated APC bookings

Most of the work in an APC connection is agreeing the details up front. This is the list we work through with clients during the specification, and having answers ready shortens it:

1. API access. APC bookings are made through its API, and access usually has to be arranged with APC or your depot for your account. We request test credentials early.
2. Your service list. Next day, timed, Saturday or anything else on your contract, each mapped to a delivery method your team selects at review.
3. Your rates. The rate card, including any size or weight bands, so the delivery price can be calculated if it isn’t returned live.
4. Parcel limits. The weights and dimensions your account accepts per parcel, so oversized items are flagged at packing rather than refused at the depot.
5. Depot expectations. Whether the depot needs a manifest, a collection request or anything else alongside the bookings.
6. Printing. A 4x6 label printer and an A4 printer near the bench. We configure the print PC and PrintNode.
7. Your ship note. The layout you use now, so it can be reproduced as it is.

Orders that go as several parcels

Trade orders often leave as three or four boxes of different sizes. On the handheld, the packer adds each parcel with its own weight and dimensions, the running total updates, and a photo of the packed order is required before it can be completed. The consignment is booked with every parcel listed, and a label prints for each one so the depot can scan them through the network.

What the office sees once the van has gone

The shipments screen lists every APC booking with its status, booking date, tracking number and charge. A failed booking, most often an unrecognised postcode, is shown with APC’s reason and can be retried once the address is fixed.

Where the delivery price for a consignment differs from the delivery charge on the customer’s PO, the order is held for someone to confirm or amend before it is completed in your ERP and invoiced. Once booked, the tracking number, parcel count and weight are written to the order, and your invoicing carries on exactly as before. The warehouse stage covers the packing side in more detail.

The build, the bill and the keys

APC booking is built in the second phase of an order to dispatch project, once order capture, review and ERP sync are live. Across both phases, that is typically £20k–£30k ex VAT and around 14 weeks, quoted as a fixed price after we have written the specification. Later changes are charged at £90 an hour.

The finished platform runs in hosting accounts set up in your company’s name. You pay no per-user licence, you hold the code, and you can keep us on for maintenance or not.

To check how APC would fit your packing and collection routine, arrange a free discovery call.