Creative Logistic Services runs a 310,000 square foot New York metro warehouse in Carlstadt, New Jersey with RFID scanning, plus partner locations in California and Florida. Fashion, apparel and accessories distribution since 2002.
All six warehouse documents run live between AIMS360 and Creative Logistic Services, and every one of them is in AIMS360's own XML format. No conversion service in the middle, no translation layer to fail at two in the morning. It is the cleanest connection shape in our 3PL network.
Six documents, all live, all in AIMS360's native XML. Orders and inbound advices go out, receipts, shipment confirmations, adjustments and the style catalog come back. The warehouse and the ERP hold one inventory position between them rather than two that get reconciled on a Monday.
| Document | Direction | What it carries |
|---|---|---|
| 832 | AIMS360 to warehouse | Style, color and size catalog, pushed before the first order ships so receiving works against real SKUs instead of inventing codes |
| 940 | AIMS360 to warehouse | Ship orders, with retailer routing and carton requirements attached |
| 943 | AIMS360 to warehouse | Inbound advice for stock arriving from your factories |
| 944 | Warehouse to AIMS360 | Receipt confirmation, so what physically landed updates your on hand |
| 945 | Warehouse to AIMS360 | Shipment confirmation with cartons, weights and tracking |
| 947 | Warehouse to AIMS360 | Inventory adjustments, so cycle counts and damages reconcile rather than drift |
The 945 is the one that pays for the whole connection. It brings carton level detail back into AIMS360, and that detail is exactly what AIMS360 uses to generate the outbound 856 advance ship notice your retailer demands. If the warehouse cannot return cartons, weights and tracking at that granularity, somebody on your team assembles the ASN by hand, every shipment, forever.
Most 3PL connections need a translator. AIMS360 produces a document, a conversion service reshapes it into whatever the warehouse platform expects, and the warehouse picks it up. That works, and we run plenty of connections that way. It also adds a step that can lag, fail quietly, or drop a field nobody notices until a retailer charges back.
Creative Logistic reads AIMS360's XML directly. Files move over SFTP into inbound and outbound folders with a separate test folder, and both SKU and UPC are carried so item identity does not depend on a single key. There is no conversion service to monitor because there is no conversion.
Every format hop is somewhere a document can stall. Removing the hop removes the class of problem.
When something does go wrong, the file that left AIMS360 is the file the warehouse read. No guessing which side reshaped it.
No mapping layer to update when a field changes, because there is no mapping layer.
A dedicated test path means a full cycle can be proven before a single customer order depends on it.
Creative Logistic Services has distributed fashion, apparel and accessories since 2002, from a 310,000 square foot New York metro warehouse in Carlstadt, New Jersey, with RFID scanning in the building and partner locations in California and Florida.
That profile suits East Coast wholesale. Carlstadt is close enough to Manhattan showrooms and the Port of New York and New Jersey to matter for both inbound containers and outbound retailer deliveries, and RFID in the warehouse is the kind of thing that stops mattering only until a retailer asks for item level tagging.
Where to be careful: customer returns have not been tested on this connection. The six core documents are live, but if returns volume is central to how you operate, raise it during scoping so it is planned rather than discovered. Branded drop ship packing slips and ecommerce versus wholesale inventory segregation are also untested here. Ask about all three.
If your volume is West Coast, a California 3PL will cost less in outbound freight. The full 3PL list covers both coasts, Canada and Europe.
Last reviewed 15 August 2026 by the AIMS360 integrations team.
Reviewed against the AIMS360 Creative Logistic Services integration record, covering the six live transactions and their formats, and against Creative Logistic Services' published facility information.
Yes, and it is one of the most complete connections we run. All six warehouse documents are live: 940 ship orders, 943 inbound advices, 944 receipts, 945 shipment confirmations, 947 inventory adjustments and 832 style catalog. Every one of them runs in AIMS360's native XML format, so no translation layer sits between the ERP and the warehouse.
Six, and they are not the retailer EDI documents most people think of. The 832 sends your style, color and size catalog to the warehouse. The 940 sends ship orders. The 943 tells the warehouse stock is arriving. Coming back: the 944 confirms what was received, the 945 confirms what shipped with carton detail, and the 947 posts inventory adjustments. A connection missing the 944 or 947 will drift out of balance, because nothing tells the ERP what physically landed or what a cycle count found.
An 850 is a purchase order from your retailer to you. A 940 is a ship order from you to your warehouse. They often carry the same underlying demand, but they travel in opposite directions between different parties. A retailer sends an 850, your ERP turns it into a pick ticket, and the 940 instructs the warehouse to pick and pack it. Confusing the two is the most common reason a 3PL scoping conversation goes in circles.
Through the 945. When the warehouse ships, the 945 returns carton level detail to the ERP: how many cartons, what is in each one, weights, tracking numbers and the SSCC carton identifier. The ERP assembles that into the 856 advance ship notice the retailer requires, with the carton hierarchy the routing guide demands. If your warehouse cannot return carton level detail, the ASN has to be built by hand for every shipment, which is where late ASN chargebacks come from.
Most 3PL connections convert AIMS360 output into whatever format the warehouse platform expects, which adds a conversion step that can fail, lag or drop fields. Creative Logistic reads AIMS360's own XML directly. Fewer moving parts between the order leaving the ERP and the carton leaving the dock.
Yes, and most growing brands eventually do. Each warehouse is a separate stocking location in AIMS360 and they roll into one available-to-sell number, so a West Coast 3PL, an East Coast 3PL and your own building can all fulfill from the same inventory picture. The usual reasons for a second warehouse are transit time, a channel that needs separating, or a region that has grown enough to justify local stock.
You add the new warehouse as another stocking location, connect it over the same document set, run both in parallel while stock transfers, then retire the old one. Because the documents are standard rather than a bespoke connector, the new warehouse does not require a rebuild. The practical constraints are physical, not technical: moving inventory, retagging if the new site has different label requirements, and not attempting any of it inside your peak season.
Not yet. The six core documents are live and tested, but customer returns have not been tested on this connection. If returns volume is central to your operation, raise it during scoping so it is planned rather than discovered after go live.
Bring your 3PL, your retailer list and your order volume to the demo. We will walk the document flow on your data, not a sample file.
