Spee-Dee stops rating at the start of a new year

Summary: A Spee-Dee rate that fails with an object reference error in the first days of a new year usually means the new year's Spee-Dee rate tables have not been created yet. Email support to have them created, or ask about moving to the Spee-Dee API so this stops happening each year.

Problem

Spee-Dee rate shop returns an object reference error and no Spee-Dee rate, usually in the first business days of a new calendar year.

object reference error

Cause

On an older Spee-Dee setup, rates are read from rate tables that are specific to each year. When the new year's table has not been built yet, the rate lookup has nothing to read and returns an object reference error. Accounts that have moved to the newer Spee-Dee API do not use these yearly tables, so they are not affected.

Other regional carriers that price from local rate files can fail the same way at the year change (for example United Delivery Service, or UDS, may show an error creating a label). The fix is the same: load the new year's rate file.

How to check: the error started right at the year change, and other carriers still rate normally.

Fix

Confirm the problem is Spee-Dee only and began at the year change.
Email support@shipstore.com and ask us to create the current year's Spee-Dee rate tables for your account.
After the table is created, run rate shop again. Spee-Dee should return a rate and shipments process.
To avoid this every January, email support to ask about moving to the Spee-Dee API, which does not use yearly local rate tables.
For another regional carrier that errors at year start (for example UDS), email support to load or copy the new year's rate file.

What you should see

After the new-year table is created, Spee-Dee returns a rate in rate shop and shipments process without the object reference error.

Carrier Administration
Old Dominion (ODFL) stopped working: legacy API endpoint retired

Knowledge Base