This guide is for small businesses dispatching from a home office, workshop or small packing bench. It focuses on practical settings that reduce clicks, keep Apply Postage tidy and help make unusual orders obvious enough to check twice.
Set Favourite Services and hide the ones you never use
Go to Settings → Shipping Services, mark your regular services as favourites and hide irrelevant choices. The aim is a shorter Apply Postage list that reflects the parcels you actually send.
Use Shipping Rules for repeating order types
Start with the two or three combinations that cover most orders. Build rules around the reliable information you already hold—product, packed weight, format, destination or service—and test them before relying on them.
Create products with the correct packed weight and format
Measure the complete packed order, not just the item. Include packaging, inserts and the outer mailer so shipping rules are working from realistic information.
Batch like with like
Group orders by their next action: for example large letters, small parcels and upgraded services. Apply postage to each logical group rather than batching only because the software allows it.
Use the Address Book for repeat destinations
Save regular buyers, suppliers, returns addresses or trade customers rather than retyping details for every manual order.
Keep an address check in the routine
Before printing, confirm the recipient, first address line, postcode, service and parcel format. A short deliberate check is cheaper than a replacement order.
Set the label template once, then test it
After changing printer, stock, browser, driver or template, print one label and check that the barcode is sharp, complete and not clipped.
Make the packing bench match the batches
Keep each software batch together physically with separate trays, piles or packing lists. One batch, one physical group, one final check.
Finish the day with a proper manifest
For Online Business Account users, check the order count and manifest deliberately when the day’s labels are final. Print the paperwork needed for handover.
Add automation only when you can name the bottleneck
Move from manual orders to spreadsheets, integrations or Desktop automation when a repeated task is genuinely slowing dispatch—not simply because another feature exists.
A simple 15-minute setup checklist
- Set favourite services and hide unused ones.
- Add packed weight and format to your most common products.
- Create and test one shipping rule for your most frequent order.
- Save regular destinations in the Address Book.
- Print and inspect one test label before the next dispatch run.