The invention is a method and system for determining a weight for use in a shipping application and for the establishment of a trainable weights database and a weight database training object. The method begins with establishing a database linked to the shipping application. The weight of a parcel to be shipped is determined by comparing a data entry at the shipping application with a set of data entries resident in the database. The comparison is performed by entering a description of the parcel to the system, and parsing the description to determine whether or not the data includes a known symbology or barcode. If it does, then the method matches the description with a locator function to locate the required weight; otherwise, the description is further parsed into match fields. If the comparison determines a weight, then the weight is returned to the shipping application for entry in an appropriate field; however, if the comparison does not return a weight, then a weight is determined by selecting an option from among a set of weight input options which includes an auto search mode. The determined weight is then input to the database in respect of a set of parameters resident in the data entry so that the determined weight can be used for subsequent transactions. Another aspect of the present invention, is a method of establishing and utilizing a weight database training object which is invoked to determine a weight to enter into the weight field of the shipping application.