# Ship a sales order

Operation ID: `createSalesOrderShipment`

Group: Accounting › Sales Order Shipments

[Open in the interactive reference](https://docs.api.lensing.ai/lensing/v1/endpoints/createSalesOrderShipment)

`POST /accounting/sales-order-shipments`

Retry-safe: A write that accepts Idempotency-Key: repeating a request with the same key replays the stored answer instead of executing twice.

Ships an approved sales order to its customer. The request drafts the shipment in inventory, then creates this sales order shipment, linked to the inventory shipment by inventoryShipmentId. The lines come from the sales order's inventory products and their items, and can't be sent in the request.

The new shipment starts at 'pendingShipment' with shippedQty 0 on every line. Inventory fills in the quantities when the shipment is committed there.

Besides SALES_ORDER_NOT_FOUND and WAREHOUSE_NOT_FOUND, the request fails with a localized message when the sales order isn't approved, or has no inventory products or no inventory product items. The request also fails when no inventory implementation is registered.

The response contains only the new shipment's id. Read the shipment number and inventoryShipmentId with GET accounting/sales-order-shipments/:id. You can set carrier, trackingId, incoterm, warehouseId, shipToContactEmail, customerRequestDate, and deliveryDate here or later with PATCH accounting/sales-order-shipments/:id.

## Parameters

| Name | In | Type | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `Api-Version` | header | string · v1 | yes | The API version this request targets, named by its public identifier. Required on every request; omitting it, or naming a version this company does not have, is answered with 400. This document describes version `v1`. |
| `Idempotency-Key` | header | string | no | An opaque caller-chosen string (1-255 characters) that makes this request safe to retry. Repeating the same key with an identical request body replays the original response instead of re-executing - but only once that original request succeeded; a failed attempt re-executes on retry. Repeating the key with a different body is answered with 422. A key still in flight is answered with 409 - as is a key whose original request was interrupted before it finished, for a few minutes afterwards, until that attempt is presumed dead. A completed response stays replayable for 24 hours. The key is scoped to the caller, not to the action: reusing it for a different action is answered with 409 or 422 rather than treated independently. On read actions this header is ignored. On write actions that cannot offer the guarantee it is answered with `400 IDEMPOTENCY_NOT_SUPPORTED` rather than silently ignored. |

## Request body

Required, `application/json`: createSalesOrderShipmentInput.

| Field | Type | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `salesOrderId` | string | yes | The approved sales order to ship. Its inventory products and their items define what goes on the shipment. See id on GET accounting/sales-orders/:id. Example: `"9c2a6a10-7d34-4c8e-9b21-5a0f3e6d81b7"`. |
| `trackingId` | string | no | The carrier tracking number or tracking URL to record on the shipment. Omit to leave it unset. |
| `carrier` | string | no | The name of the carrier handling the shipment. Omit to leave it unset. Example: `"DHL"`. |
| `incoterm` | string | no | The incoterm governing shipping responsibility. For example 'DAP' or 'EXW'. Omit to leave it unset. Example: `"DAP"`. |
| `warehouseId` | string | no | The warehouse location the shipment is dispatched from. Omit to leave it unset. See id on GET inventory/warehouses/:id. |
| `shipToContactEmail` | string | no | The email of the contact who receives this shipment. Omit to leave it unset. |
| `customerRequestDate` | date | no | The date the customer asked for delivery. Use format YYYY-MM-DD. Omit to leave it unset. |
| `deliveryDate` | date | no | The date the shipment is expected to be delivered. Use format YYYY-MM-DD. Omit to leave it unset. |

```json
{
  "salesOrderId": "9c2a6a10-7d34-4c8e-9b21-5a0f3e6d81b7",
  "trackingId": "3fa85f64-5717-4562-b3fc-2c963f66afa6",
  "carrier": "DHL",
  "incoterm": "DAP",
  "warehouseId": "3fa85f64-5717-4562-b3fc-2c963f66afa6",
  "shipToContactEmail": "<shipToContactEmail>",
  "customerRequestDate": "2026-01-15",
  "deliveryDate": "2026-01-15"
}
```

## Response

`200` Success

Under `data` (createSalesOrderShipmentOutput):

| Field | Type | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `id` | string | yes | The unique identifier for the created sales order shipment. Example: `"3b7d5e9c-1a24-4f80-9c6d-2e8f70b13a45"`. |

```json
{
  "data": {
    "id": "3b7d5e9c-1a24-4f80-9c6d-2e8f70b13a45"
  },
  "diagnostics": [
    {
      "code": "<code>",
      "message": "<message>",
      "severity": "error",
      "path": [
        "<path>"
      ],
      "details": "<details>"
    }
  ]
}
```

## Response headers

- `Idempotency-Replayed` — Present and `true` only when this response replays a previously stored one for the same Idempotency-Key, rather than reflecting a live execution. Absent on a live response - never sent as `false`.

## Errors

| Code | Status |
| --- | --- |
| `SALES_ORDER_NOT_FOUND` | 400 |
| `WAREHOUSE_NOT_FOUND` | 400 |
| `IDEMPOTENCY_KEY_CONFLICT` | 409 |
| `IDEMPOTENCY_PAYLOAD_MISMATCH` | 422 |

## Statuses

- `400` — Invalid request or business failure. Codes: SALES_ORDER_NOT_FOUND, WAREHOUSE_NOT_FOUND
- `401` — The request carries no valid access token.
- `403` — Not authorized
- `404` — Not found
- `409` — The Idempotency-Key is still being processed by another request.
- `422` — The Idempotency-Key was already used with a different request payload.
- `429` — Too many requests from this client address. The response has no body and no `Retry-After` header.
- `500` — Internal server error