DHL contract activation Germany

Purpose: Learn how to connect your DHL carrier contract with your Sendcloud account in three easy steps. 

Become a DHL customer now! The only requirement is a valid DHL business customer contract, which you can obtain directly here, with a minimum of 200 national and/or international parcels per year.

Step 1: Activate your Sendcloud subscription

Sendcloud offers three subscriptions with which you are able to use your own transport contract: Lite, Growth and Premium plan.

For more information regarding which plan is best for you and the needs of your business, you can always contact us via the support section of your Sendcloud account or click here.

Step 2: Enable your carrier contract 

Once you have activated a Sendcloud subscription, you can connect your carrier contract. 

1. In your Sendcloud panel navigate to Shipping > Carriers.
2. Go to the My contracts tab and find DHL from the list.
3. Click Add contract. Here you can add the credentials needed to validate the connection to DHL. 

Step 3: Enter your DHL contract details

We’ve simplified the process of connecting your DHL Germany contract. You now only need to enter your DHL Business Customer Portal credentials, and Sendcloud will automatically retrieve your contract details and all associated billing numbers.

What you need to do:

• Enter your username and password for the DHL Business Customer Portal.

• Sendcloud will then:

  • Retrieve all billing numbers linked to your contract.

  • Present a list for you to select which billing numbers you wish to activate for shipping.

Step 4: Enable domestic and international returns

In order to be able to receive returns from different countries, please retrieve the country Receiver ID which can be found in the DHL business customer portal.

1. Go to DHL Geschäftskundenportal > Parcel & Products > Returns > Settings. 
2. In the Receiver and country overview, your account manager will define all countries from which you want to receive returns (per country = one line). 
3. Copy the Receiver ID to the Sendcloud contract settings for each country that you want to enable returns for. In the example below, under the outlined yellow box you can see the Receiver ID is here named as "BE" for returns to Belgium. 
   
   
4. In your Sendcloud account, navigate to Settings > Carriers & Pricing > My contracts > DHL DE
5. Scroll down the page until you see the Returns section on the DHL DE contract settings page
6. Select your return country from the dropdown menu and then enter the Receiver ID exactly as it appears in your DHL portal
   
7. To add additional countries, click ± and repeat the process
8. Press the Save button when all countries are added

Once you have filled in the receiver ID’s per country in the Sendcloud contract settings the following methods are supported on the Sendcloud platform:

DHL Retoure (formally DHL Paket Return) and DHL Mobile Retoure (formally DHL Retoure Online).

Step 5 (optional): Upload your own DHL contract prices

If you've followed the steps above, your DHL contract is now successfully linked to your Sendcloud panel, and you can start shipping with your own DHL rates. When you create a label with a DHL shipping method, the label price will now show as 0.00 EUR in your account.

If you want your own prices to be visible in your Sendcloud account, you can upload the contract prices. After adding your DHL contract, you can go to 'My contracts' and click on 'Add prices'.

You'll then see a detailed form that is divided into multiple sections:

• Paket
• Kleinpaket
• Paket International
• Warenpost International
• Paket Connect
• Retoure
• Retoure online

In the form, you only need to fill in the sections that match your specific DHL contract details. Don’t worry about losing any of your changes because all the information you enter will be saved automatically. The surcharges and extra costs have already been filled in for you. Make sure to review these amounts and adjust them if you have special rates that you’ve negotiated with DHL.