LTL freight shipping from Business Central means quoting, booking and documenting a pallet shipment from the Warehouse Shipment or sales order, without retyping it into a carrier portal. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central records the Shipping Agent and posts the shipment, but it has no freight quoting, no bill of lading and no pallet-level packaging model of its own. This article defines parcel, LTL and full truckload, explains what a bill of lading carries and why it is harder to produce than a parcel label, shows how pallet-level data from license plates feeds it, and describes what integrated LTL quoting looks like inside Business Central.
What is the difference between parcel, LTL and full truckload shipping?
The difference is weight and how the carrier handles the freight, and it decides which documents and data you need. The National Motor Freight Traffic Association draws the lines in its parcel versus LTL shipping guide: parcel shipping “is designed for smaller, lightweight shipments, typically under 150 pounds,” while less-than-truckload shipping “accommodates large, heavy shipments that don’t require a full truckload,” typically between 150 and 10,000 pounds. Above that, a shipment fills the trailer and becomes full truckload (FTL), where you pay for the truck rather than the space.
| Mode | Typical shipment | Priced on | Primary document | Handling unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parcel | Under about 150 lb per box | Weight, dimensions, zone, service | Carrier label per box | Carton |
| LTL | Roughly 150 to 10,000 lb, shares trailer space | Freight class, weight, pallet count, accessorials | Bill of lading and pallet labels | Pallet |
| FTL | Fills a trailer, one shipper | Distance, lane, equipment | Bill of lading | Trailer load |
For a Business Central warehouse, the jump from parcel to LTL changes three things at once. The quote depends on data Business Central does not hold by default (freight class, pallet dimensions, accessorial services such as liftgate or residential delivery). The document is a bill of lading rather than a label. And the handling unit is a pallet with mixed contents, which standard Business Central does not model as a thing that can be scanned or shipped as one unit.
What does a bill of lading carry, and why can Business Central not print one on its own?
A bill of lading (BOL) is both the receipt for the goods and the contract of carriage, so it has to describe the physical shipment accurately. The FMCSA glossary defines it as “The receipt for your goods and the contract for their transportation,” in the FMCSA shipping glossary, and the parallel regulatory definition for household goods moves in 49 CFR 375.103 puts the same idea in legal language: a bill of lading “means both the receipt and the contract for the transportation.” When the driver signs it, the count and condition on that document become the basis for any claim later.
A usable LTL bill of lading typically carries:
- Shipper and consignee addresses, plus a third-party bill-to when freight is charged elsewhere.
- Carrier name, PRO number and the quote or booking reference.
- Handling units: number of pallets, dimensions and weight per pallet, stackable or not.
- Commodity lines: description, NMFC item and freight class, piece count and weight.
- Accessorials and special instructions: liftgate, appointment, inside delivery.
- Payment terms (prepaid, collect, third party) and a signature block for shipper and driver.
That list is general freight practice rather than one vendor’s form, which is why BOL reports are usually tailored: an integrated report supplies the shipment, party and package data, and a partner extends it for whatever else a carrier’s paperwork demands.
Standard Business Central stores the first item and part of the second. The Shipping Agent and Shipping Agent Service on the order describe the carrier, and Microsoft’s shipping agent setup page confirms the scope: “You can set up a code for each of your shipping agents and enter information about them.” Nothing in the standard Warehouse Shipment knows how many pallets went out, what each weighed, or which items sat on which pallet. That is why a BOL built from standard data ends up as a report someone finishes by hand, or as a form filled in on the carrier’s website.
How does pallet-level data get into Business Central for LTL shipping?
Pallet-level data gets into Business Central when the warehouse builds pallets as records rather than as an afterthought, and a license plate is the record that does it. A license plate is an internal identifier for a pallet, tote or carton that already knows the items, quantities, lot or serial numbers and location inside it, so a worker scans one barcode instead of every item. The License Plating add-on gives pickers that capability on the handheld: scan a license plate template barcode at the start of a pick, scan items onto the plate, and register the pick with the plate’s contents recorded. The feature page on pick to license plate for shipping in Business Central walks through that sequence.
That step matters for freight because the plate is exactly the handling unit the BOL needs. Once the pallet exists as a license plate, its contents exist as data, and the shipping app reads them instead of asking the packer to type them. Insight Works is explicit about the link: “Dynamic Ship pulls shipment, party, and carton data from the created license plates and includes it in the report.”
Two details from implementations are worth knowing before you design the process:
- License Plating is designed for Warehouse Insight, so pallet build during the pick belongs to the handheld, not to a standalone purchase. Dynamic Ship creates license plates of its own during packing, so a warehouse without handheld picking can still build pallets and print a bill of lading; it just does so at the packing station rather than during the pick.
- Skipping a step breaks the link. A pick registered in the Business Central client rather than on the handheld does not record the source document on the plate, so packing proceeds without reference to the pick. Train the process end to end, or the pallet data will be incomplete exactly when the driver is waiting.
What does integrated LTL quoting look like from a Business Central shipment?
Integrated LTL quoting means the freight quote request is built from the Business Central shipment and the chosen quote is written back to it. Dynamic Ship does this at the sales order or Warehouse Shipment level, reaching what the app page for freight and parcel shipping for Business Central calls “hundreds of parcel, LTL, and FTL carriers” through pluggable connectors. The connectors whose listings name freight are 2Ship LTL Parcel, Banyan FTL LTL Parcel and Echo LTL; the C.H. Robinson connector adds intermodal, freight forwarding and customs brokerage.
The sequence, as it runs at a shipping desk:
- Validate the address. Dynamic Ship checks the ship-to address before any quote is requested, so a bad postal code is caught before a carrier charges a reconsignment fee.
- Build the packages. Manual package entry, automatic package building, or the barcode-driven Package Worksheet that verifies each item scanned into a box or onto a pallet. Pallets built as license plates already carry their contents, and the bill of lading is generated from those plates.
- Request quotes. The connector returns rates from its LTL carriers based on pallet count, weight, dimensions, freight class and accessorials. The packer compares them on one screen.
- Apply freight pricing. Freight price rules set what the customer is billed: a percentage markup on actual cost, a flat freight amount, a line discount, or a maximum rate cap on a carrier and service combination. Rules are scoped by customer, customer price group, campaign or all customers, and the knowledge base states they are “processed from most specific to most generic in the following order: Customer, Customer Price Group, Campaign, All Customers.” The feature page on freight price rules for Business Central covers the options.
- Book and print. The booking goes to the carrier, the tracking or PRO number is written back to the shipment, and the bill of lading and labels print straight from the Package Worksheet after packing, with no separate data entry step. Insight Works ships a base BOL report that, per the feature page on bill of lading generation in Business Central, “your Business Central partner can modify to match your carrier’s format or your company’s paperwork standards.”
A first-hand point on freight classes: freight class is not a standard item card field in Business Central, and LTL quotes are wrong without it. Dynamic Ship supplies the standard freight fields, freight class among them, through its freight options, and most LTL connectors read them from there; a few connectors hold their own equivalent fields instead. Settle which connector you are using and where it reads class from before the first quote, because fixing it after go-live means touching every shipped item.
What LTL scenarios need the freight platform rather than the app?
The platform decides which carriers can quote and what their rules allow; Dynamic Ship sends the request and records the answer. The 2Ship connector page shows where the line falls: it advertises “Access to Over 300 LTL and Parcel Carriers,” consolidated LTL options for combining shipments, scheduled pickup and delivery, and the accessorial detail freight quoting depends on, listed there as “blanket service, reefer requirements, power tailgate services, white-glove service, delivery specifics.” All of that lives in the platform’s configuration, and the connector may carry its own provider fee, paid to the platform rather than to Insight Works.
Dynamic Ship is licensed per shipping location, and it runs on Business Central online and on-premises. A distributor with one dock shipping parcel in the morning and pallets in the afternoon runs both from the same Warehouse Shipment list.
Frequently asked questions about LTL freight shipping from Business Central
How do I ship LTL from Business Central?
Create the Warehouse Shipment or sales order as usual, then use Dynamic Ship to validate the address, build pallets, request LTL quotes through a freight connector, and book the chosen carrier. The tracking number and bill of lading come back to the Business Central shipment.
How do I reprint a BOL?
The bill of lading is a Business Central report printed from the Package Worksheet after packing, so it can be printed again rather than re-keyed. Because the report is built from the created license plates, it can also be printed from Warehouse Insight. The knowledge base article on printing the bill of lading report for Business Central also notes that the layout is selected in Insight Works Report Selection, which is where a partner points it at a modified version.
Can I add freight charges to the invoice?
Yes. As the freight price rules page puts it, “The price your freight rule calculates appears on the sales order freight line as the unit price the customer is billed. The actual carrier cost is tracked separately on the same line.”
Do I need License Plating to ship LTL with Dynamic Ship?
No. Dynamic Ship creates license plates of its own during packing, and the bill of lading is built from those. License Plating adds pallet build during the handheld pick and is designed for Warehouse Insight; it is useful, not required.
What does Business Central need on the item for an LTL quote?
At minimum, accurate weight and dimensions, plus a freight class. Standard Business Central has no freight class field; Dynamic Ship’s freight options supply it to most LTL connectors, and the remaining connectors hold their own.