ShipMonk, formerly Ruby Has, connects to AIMS360 as a stocking location. The warehouse picks, packs and ships; AIMS360 builds the retailer advance ship notice, the carton labels and the invoice from what it confirms, so your 3PL never has to touch an EDI document.
ShipMonk picks, packs and ships. AIMS360 owns the parts a warehouse should never be responsible for: the retailer purchase order, the routing guide, the carton label content, the advance ship notice and the invoice. The two connect over whatever rail the warehouse supports, and your 3PL never has to touch an EDI document to keep a department store happy.
ShipMonk, formerly Ruby Has, is one of the warehouses with a live AIMS360 connection. AIMS360 sends the item catalog and the ship orders; ShipMonk sends back receipts, shipment confirmations with carton detail and tracking, inventory adjustments and stock snapshots. Every retailer document, the 856 advance ship notice, the GS1-128 carton label and the 810 invoice, is built by AIMS360 from what the warehouse confirmed. The warehouse never sees them.
That split is the whole design. A 3PL is measured on how fast and how accurately it gets a box out of a building. A retailer is measuring something else entirely: whether the advance ship notice arrived before the freight, whether the carton label carries the right purchase order and store number, whether the invoice matches what shipped. Those are two different jobs, and the second one belongs with the system that holds the order, not with the building.
It also means your 3PL choice stops being a technical decision. Whether ShipMonk speaks EDI, an API or a scheduled file drop changes the plumbing between them and AIMS360 and changes nothing about what the retailer receives.
Worth settling early, because both names still turn up in contracts, warehouse paperwork and search.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| Before 2022 | Ruby Has Fulfillment operated as an independent 3PL serving direct to consumer and wholesale brands, with a strong apparel and fashion client base. |
| February 2022 | ShipMonk acquired Ruby Has Fulfillment. The two networks were brought together under the ShipMonk name. |
| Today | ShipMonk is the operating name. An AIMS360 setup or a warehouse agreement that still says Ruby Has describes the same connection, so there is nothing to migrate on that account alone. |
Direction matters more than most vendors admit, because a document pointed the wrong way is a document nobody acts on. These are the ASC X12 names, used as shared vocabulary; how each one actually travels is a transport decision made per warehouse.
| Document | What it carries | Direction |
|---|---|---|
| 832 catalog | The item master: style, color, size, UPC, case pack, dimensions, weight, lot flags. Sent before the first order. Some warehouses take this as an item maintenance file or an API item call instead. | AIMS360 to warehouse |
| 940 ship order | What to ship, to whom, by which carrier, packed to which retailer's rules. | AIMS360 to warehouse |
| 943 inbound advice | Production on the way, so the dock is expecting it. | AIMS360 to warehouse |
| 944 receipt advice | What the warehouse actually received, including shortages and damages. | Warehouse to AIMS360 |
| 945 shipment advice | What shipped, with carton detail, weights, SSCC codes and tracking. The 856 and the invoice are both built from this one document. | Warehouse to AIMS360 |
| 947 inventory adjustment | A count variance, a damage or a correction, with a reason code attached. | Warehouse to AIMS360 |
| 846 inventory snapshot | On hand at that warehouse, used to reconcile against the ERP. | Warehouse to AIMS360 |
| 997 acknowledgment | Confirms a document arrived and parsed. Silence is not confirmation. | Both ways |
This is the assumption that quietly shrinks a brand's shortlist, and it is worth taking apart before you choose a warehouse.
| The assumption | What is actually the case |
|---|---|
| Our 3PL has no EDI, so we cannot automate fulfillment | The warehouse connection can be API, CSV, tab delimited, XML or flat file. EDI capability at the warehouse is optional. |
| If we use a 3PL we lose retailer EDI compliance | Retailer EDI stays in AIMS360 and is unaffected by where the goods sit. The warehouse never touches a retailer document. |
| A 940 means an EDI file | A 940 means a ship order. How it travels is decided per warehouse. |
| We need an EDI provider as well as the ERP | AIMS360 is the EDI. There is no translator or second subscription in between. |
| Modern ecommerce 3PLs are ruled out because they only have an API | An API is easier to integrate than EDI, not harder. Warehouses with neither are the difficult case. |
If your ERP insists the warehouse must be EDI capable, your shortlist quietly loses a large share of the modern ecommerce 3PLs, the ones with a clean API and no X12 at all. You would be ruling out good operators for a technical reason that has nothing to do with how well they pick, pack and ship. The full argument sits on DTC and 3PL fulfillment automation.
Brands usually arrive at a 3PL for ecommerce and then discover the wholesale side has to live somewhere too. On one stock record it does not need a second answer.
Web and marketplace orders import paid, get a pick ticket automatically and ship as single parcels, with fulfillment and tracking written back to the channel. The record level view is on B2C direct to consumer.
The retailer's 850 lands in AIMS360, the ship order goes to the warehouse with the retailer's packing rules, and the 856 and 810 go back when the 945 arrives. CommerceHub dropship walks through one program end to end.
Cartons on a pallet for a distribution center, with routing guides, GS1-128 carton labels and ASN carton hierarchy applied by the ERP rather than the warehouse. 350+ retailers run on the same connection.
Returns come back to the warehouse, are received against the order they came from, and post as return authorizations and credits. Returns management covers the connected returns apps.
The same AIMS360 implementation manager who demos the platform runs this and stays on the account afterward.
Ask the warehouse what it supports: EDI, API or file drop. Some do all three. AIMS360 connects either way, so the answer never becomes a reason you cannot use that 3PL.
Item data goes over before anything else: style, color, size, UPC, case pack, carton dimensions, weight, lot flags. This is the step that decides whether go live takes three weeks or three months.
Ship orders and inbound advice out, receipts, shipments, adjustments and snapshots back. Both sides confirm the fields they can actually send before anyone writes a mapping.
Run real orders through the warehouse in test and confirm the shipment carton detail produces a clean 856 and correct carton labels. Prove it before a live retailer purchase order is exposed to a chargeback.
Orders route on their own and shipments, receipts, adjustments and inventory come back. Exceptions get watched with you through the first season, not just the first week.
A new 3PL becomes another stocking location. The retailer side does not move, because it never left the ERP, so switching is a warehouse project rather than an EDI recertification.
Stated plainly, because a 3PL integration is not one thing and the differences surface in month two rather than in the demo.
| Question | Why it decides the outcome |
|---|---|
| Which rail, and which fields | The document set and the transport are confirmed per warehouse during implementation rather than assumed. Two warehouses on the same platform can return different fields. |
| Can it return what your category needs | Apparel needs style, color and size matrices with case packs picked as a unit. Footwear needs size run depth and widths. Beauty and supplements need lot numbers and expiry dates or a recall is not possible. Home needs freight class and damage detail. See the consumer brand industries AIMS360 serves. |
| How quickly does inventory come back | Availability is only as current as the last thing the warehouse told you. Core size stockouts hurt most in footwear and fast turning apparel, so on hand by size needs to be current rather than overnight. |
| What happens to a count variance | An adjustment should arrive with a reason code and be logged with a timestamp, on both sides of the connection. A warehouse that corrects a number quietly is a reconciliation problem waiting for a season end. |
What brands ask when they are moving fulfillment to a 3PL and keeping their retailer accounts.
Yes. ShipMonk, formerly Ruby Has, is one of the warehouses with a live AIMS360 connection, covering ecommerce, retail and wholesale fulfillment, shipping and returns. AIMS360 sends the item catalog and the ship orders, ShipMonk sends back receipts, shipment confirmations with carton detail and tracking, inventory adjustments and periodic stock snapshots. The exact rail and the exact field set are confirmed with the warehouse during implementation, which is true of every 3PL rather than a caveat about this one.
Yes. ShipMonk acquired Ruby Has Fulfillment in February 2022 and the operations run under the ShipMonk name now. Brands who signed with Ruby Has often still search for it, and warehouse paperwork from before the acquisition still carries the old name, so both names describe the same fulfillment network today. If you are looking at an older AIMS360 setup that names Ruby Has, it is the same connection.
No. Retailer EDI and warehouse integration are two separate jobs and only the retailer side has to be EDI. AIMS360 performs that side itself. The warehouse connection runs on whatever the warehouse actually supports, which across the AIMS360 partner list means REST API calls, CSV files, tab delimited files matching a warehouse platform's native import template, AIMS360 XML, and sometimes real X12. Several of the busiest warehouse connections on the platform exchange no X12 at all.
The item catalog goes over first as an 832 style file, or the equivalent API item call. Then ship orders go out as 940 warehouse shipping orders, inbound production is announced with a 943 and receipted with a 944, shipments come back as 945 warehouse shipping advices with carton detail, weights and tracking, count variances come back on a 947 with a reason code, and a periodic 846 snapshot reconciles on hand. Every file is acknowledged with a 997. On an API rail the same events move as order pushes, shipment webhooks and inventory endpoints, and the business logic does not change.
Yes, and that is the point of running it under an ERP rather than beside one. A retailer purchase order arrives in AIMS360 as an 850, AIMS360 assigns it to the ShipMonk location, and the ship order goes out with the retailer's packing and label rules attached. When the 945 comes back, AIMS360 builds the 856 advance ship notice and the 810 invoice from it. Bulk wholesale, retailer dropship and your own ecommerce all run out of the same building on the same stock.
AIMS360 does, from the carton detail on the shipment confirmation. The warehouse never touches a retailer document. That matters for compliance, because the routing guide, the GS1-128 carton label content and the ASN carton hierarchy are retailer specific and change without the warehouse being told. Keeping them in the ERP means a chargeback risk does not move house every time you change 3PLs.
Yes. Each warehouse is its own AIMS360 location, and most brands run more than one at a time. A distribution center, a retail store and a 3PL can all be live in the same week, on the same stock record, feeding the same storefront. Allocation rules decide which location an order draws from when more than one can fill it.
Availability is calculated in AIMS360 per location and published outward, never the other way round. Open orders and allocations are netted out before any channel sees a quantity, so a bulk order committed this morning is already out of the number your storefront shows this afternoon. Receipts, shipments, returns and adjustments from the warehouse all update the same record, and a periodic inventory snapshot from the warehouse reconciles against it.
The warehouse reports the variance as a 947 inventory adjustment advice with a reason code, and AIMS360 logs it with a timestamp down to the second. The same discipline applies to adjustments made in an owned warehouse: a cycle count correction, a damage write off or a manual override all leave a dated record. A warehouse cannot quietly change a number on either side of the connection.
Five steps rather than a number: confirm the rail the warehouse supports, push the item catalog, map the documents both sides can actually send, run a full test cycle with real orders, and go live with exceptions watched through the first season. The catalog step is the one that decides whether go live takes three weeks or three months, because incomplete item data is what stalls a warehouse build far more often than the integration itself.
The new warehouse becomes another stocking location and the retailer side does not move, because it never left the ERP. Swapping a warehouse is a warehouse project rather than an EDI recertification. That is the practical argument for keeping retailer compliance in the ERP: your fulfillment strategy stays yours rather than being pinned to one vendor's connector roadmap.
Yes, more than most brands expect. An apparel brand needs style, color and size matrices with case packs and prepacks picked as a unit. A footwear brand needs size run depth, half sizes and widths. A beauty or supplement brand needs lot and batch numbers and expiry dates, or it cannot run a recall. A home or furniture brand needs freight class and damage detail. Ask a warehouse whether it can return those fields before you sign, because a 3PL that cannot send back a lot number is a poor fit for a supplement brand no matter how good its pick rate is.
Last reviewed 16 September 2026 by the AIMS360 team. ShipMonk's acquisition of Ruby Has Fulfillment was announced in February 2022. Warehouse document sets, transport rails and returnable field sets differ by facility and are confirmed for your program during implementation. Company and product names belong to their owners.
Bring the facility you are quoting and the retailers you ship to. We will walk through the rail, the fields that have to come back for your category, and what the retailer receives at the other end.
