About Freight Exchange

Contents

Freight and Equipment Exchange

A Freight Exchange is an online marketplace for freight and equipment and is mainly used by large companies to communicate available freight to their logistic providers. Freecargo is an open public Freight Exchange, but for transport companies only. Other type of companies do not have access but they can start their own private freight exchange to use similar functionality.

Features:

• Find or Post available freight or available equipment
• Send notifications to partners about new offers
• Request quotations

Advanced features:

• Dispatch and assignment of jobs to partners and subcontractors
• Tracking of assigned jobs and automatic reporting of status changes
• Sms, email and on-board computer communication
• Printing of transport documents, manifests, labels and job-lists
• Accept proof of delivery, electronic signatures (PDA) and driver status reports
• Automatic notification of customers about deliveries, pick-ups, delays etc.
• Order entry for customers (on-line and EDI)
• Create invoice data for accounting and bookkeeping systems
• Simple cross-docking and warehouse facilities

Closed User Groups

Every user can create his own Closed User Group by adding his partners to his account. The smallest Closed User Group is when two users enter each other as their partner. Partners will see each others offers earlier than non-partners. If the offer is not picked up by one of the partners then it is copied automatically to Freecargo and becomes visible to other users too. This mechanism can be switched off so that offers can be kept exclusively within the group and never go to Freecargo.

It is also possible to add other exchanges as 'partner'. For instance the exchange of a large customer who is not allowed to use Freecargo (because it's not a transport company) but who does offer freight through its own private exchange. The offers from these so called 'partner exchanges' are retrieved automatically and shown together with all other offers. This allows users to simultaneously search several different exchanges.

See also:

• PartnerEdit

Private Exchanges

Companies who are not allowed to use the Freecargo exchange, like manufacturing and trading companies, can start their own private freight exchange under their own name. Since it is their own exchange they can enter their own users and partners. Offers are usually entered by the owner which automatically triggers notifications to partners. Partners enter a quote if they are interested and the exchange owner decides who ultimately gets the job.

Private exchanges are also quite common among large closed user groups. These exchanges are often called 'Group Exchanges'. A Group Exchange under own name prevents the necessity for individual members of the group to maintain a long list of other group members. They just enter the name of the group exchange as partner and allow new offers to be automatically copied to the group exchange. The long list of partners is then maintained centrally within the group exchange itself.

See also:

• PrivateExchange

Notifications

Users can send notifications to partners about their offers. A partner is not necessarily a freecargo user, entering an email address is enough. It is possible to exclude countries for certain partners as it is possible for partners to accept only those notifications they are interested in.

It is also possible to enter a delay for individual partners. This way preferred partners can be notified earlier then less reliable partners.

Quotations

Users can enter a quotation for offers they are interested in. The owner of the offer receives a notification as soon a quotation is entered. After a certain amount of time the owner can decide who gets the actual job and then remove the offer from the freight exchange.

Dispatch and job assignment

When the owner has decided who gets the job he can remove the offer from the freight exchange destroying all details or alternatively use the dispatch page to assign the job to the chosen partner. The job is removed automatically from the freight exchange and the partner receives an email with the details and the agreed price.

By the end of the week the owner is able to print a page of all partners and the jobs assigned to them, as well as a total of all agreed prices and the result of each job (completed, not completed or any difficulties).

Job tracking

The dispatch page is much like a planning board showing drivers and partners and the jobs assigned to them. The partner is requested to formally accept the job which will show up on the dispatch page in the form of a orange colored symbol. After completion the partner is asked to change the status of the job again which will show up on the dispatch page in the form of a green colored planning symbol.

Status changes can be entered by planners or passed remotely by drivers via a special subcontractor page or by using a smartphone or by sending simple sms messages. The performance of drivers or subcontractors are measured and it is even possible to forward job statuses to customers to inform them about successful deliveries.

Sms and email messaging

Job details are passed to drivers and subcontractors either by sms or email. There are also several communication modules for onboard computers, PDA's and some other mobile devices. Drivers are able to send simple messages back to accept or decline jobs or send status messages. As modern mobile devices are able to report their position it is also possible to show positions on pages like Google maps.

Planners and drivers are also able to receive notifications about additional freight along their route and possible return loads at or around their destination.

Terms & Conditions

See: Terms & Conditions