Unlock Logistics’ Digital Edge with Custom Freight Management Software

Do you want to know the secret why services like FedEx, DHL, and Kuehne+Nagel process their deliveries so fast? Their developers will affirm: that’s because they decided to build a logistics system! This solution saves their time and money on arranging shipments, billing, and communication. 

With software, the logistics companies have got a single space to integrate data from different sources and synchronize the processes error-free and real-time. This secret ingredient will make your supply chain run like clockwork, too, driving the revenue up.

But how to make it work? Many companies investing in technological solutions try to get the answer and make their complex supply chain better. The growing demand doesn’t meet the adequate supply, though. As MicKinsey states, it’s not easy to find a reliable tech partner and capture the full value in integrating logistics software. 

The task to create custom freight forwarding software becomes even harder: around 63% of companies surveyed by Ernst and Young recognize they don’t have a clearly defined digital strategy for this move. 

To outperform your competitors, check this guide and get the key traits of the freight management system to distinguish a professional vendor for this service.

4 Processes a Freight Forwarding System Optimizes

In essence, the task of freight forwarding is to arrange transportation, managed by contracts and corporate capacities, on behalf of shippers and carriers. If processed manually, this activity requires careful attention and extensive communication. But with management software, you get an automated tool that assists in storing and synchronizing all the quotations, documents, and shipments happening in your company. 

The technology integrates the internal processes and connects information from external sources, like IoT devices and third-party logistics services. This way, you get a smart system that is capable of handling complicated and long logistics processes within a couple of clicks and hours. No place for errors, waiting, hassle, and disintegration left!

“Availability of data and data quality are becoming increasingly decisive factors. A single, unified platform across Europe increases our efficiency even further and eases the daily life for our employees at the same time. Everyone can access consolidated customer information in real time, affording transparency for the operational staff throughout the entire production chain”

Uwe Brinks

DHL Freight CEO

Here are the exact processes custom logistics software for trucking optimizes:

In short, freight management software is an integrated system that tracks and arranges all the key supply chain processes. With its help, you can quickly check and evaluate the situation with your operations.

5 Features Any Freight Management Software Should Possess

#1 Payment management

This functionality should let you generate quotes right in your software. Freight management technology of any appearance serves as a single digital solution to make separate payments and control your overall budget. Moreover, your managers should be able to modify and discuss freight rates right in the program.

#2 Sending Invoices

The automated system should contain ready-to-use templates for your freight managers to complete billing activities. If it meets your business needs, you can ask for customized freight management software so that it can receive payments on the invoices you’ve sent and link them to your accounting system.

#3 Documentation Module

Managing documents is always a pain for logistics companies. With freight management software, you should get the program to store documents from various sources and provide digital approvals. This way, you will reduce the time spent and eliminate previous bureaucratic challenges.

#4 Status Tracking

The technology should provide extensive information on each order. In this case, real-time updates are useful to make your communication with customers more effective. The advanced functionality of this feature includes various visualization tools, mobile notifications, and delivery estimation.

#5 Comparing Prices

In the program, you should get an opportunity to check the price offerings from different providers. This way, freight management software gives you control over shipment rates so you can instantly filter carriers who don’t fit your requirements and pick a truly cost-effective option.

3 Extra Features Worth Adding to Your Freight Forwarding Software

“Our entire value proposition is around combining applications from the end-to-end supply chain into one cohesive process. We’ll have one way of operating for the entire company. We’ll have one solution platform that natively works together.”

Michael Farlekas

E2open CEO

Why Companies Decide to Build Freight Management Software Application: 4 Use Cases

Big corporations, mid-sized companies, and startups alike recognize the advantages of freight forwarding software for processes optimization. Check these four examples of successful technology adoption to see how it works for their businesses.

DHL

The corporate branch DHL Freight adopts several freight enterprise software solutions that assist their daily work-related processes. The main project in this range is EVO, a freight transportation management system DHL uses to unite three separate tracking programs and several external applications. 

The innovation has provided extra transparency, satisfactory automation, better performance, and waste-free resource management. As a result, EVO established full integration of slightly connected existing systems.

Blue Cargo

The leading freight forwarder from Colombia adopts the solution from Silver Bullet with Microsoft Dynamics GP integration. This custom service successfully copes with two main corporate challenges: effective expansion to the USA and automation of all the main processes. 

The technology has introduced several improvements. Overall, the automatic data mining for shipment information led to instant growth of annual shipment volume and corporate revenue. Moreover, it decreased the frequency of data losses significantly, leading to better employee performance and risk management. Finally, a customized reporting system increased the overall transparency of corporate processes.

Freight Scouts

The Atlanta-based company Freight Scouts requested a custom solution that combined a classic TMS (transportation management system) with the technology to simplify the existing processes. 

This way, Freight Scouts managed to arrange its diverse customers and increased the effectiveness of dealing with truckload and less-than-truckload freight categories. As a result, it optimized all the lifecycle processes from order creation to service delivery. 

In a nutshell, the custom solution provides the needed level of visibility, optimization, and simplicity for the company.

ZMac Transportation

The logistics company from Racine, Wisconsin, requested a TMS from Truckstop with an emphasis on accounting activities. The corporate offering includes flatbed, less-than-truckload (LTL), and over-dimensional freight. The problems refer to the mess with orders that led to poor payment processing and the inability to provide satisfactory client support.

The digital solution was Truckstop Pay, a payment program designed for transportation companies. With its help, the client received improved operational effectiveness, greater client satisfaction, and higher revenue. Workers in ZMac Transportation spend less time and experience less stress while managing routine operations with automatic order quotations and arrangements. And due to the quick pay option, carriers get the service with no contracts or hidden fees at a minimum 2.99% rate.

Overall, ZMac executives changed their financial focus from micromanaging order payments to strategic thinking on how to make money. This shift enabled improving the service quality while the program took on itself the tasks of increasing capacity and accelerating the payment processing.

Which Benefits to Expect If You Decide to Create a Logistic Management System from Scratch?

As Deloitte forecasts, the global freight volume will increase to 92.1 billion tons by 2024. In the given circumstances, it’s better to start investing in digitalization now and pick a custom solution. With a personalized approach to technology creation, you will cover the needs for optimizing the existing processes in your company and adding extra relevant features. 

Each logistics company has a one-of-a-kind internal environment, and custom freight forwarding solutions only recognize this uniqueness.  

Here is the set of tangible advantages with customized freight management software option:

If you like the idea of a custom solution but still have doubts, you can refer to us. Supply chain management services from AmconSoft include custom software development along with supply chain business consulting, third-party systems integration, and legacy software modernization. 

You can order one service or request a full-scope package. Together, these solutions ensure we’ll develop freight management software capable of your profit maximization.

5 Stages to Develop Custom Freight Management Software

Once you pick a custom software development service from AmconSoft, we’ll start working under the time-proven plan and provide you with an effective digital solution for logistics management. Being your tech partner, we’ll refine the technology that will manage the exact optimization problems your company faces.

Planning and Technology Selection

At this stage, we’ll create a detailed plan for the digitalization of your idea. The bunch of prototypes, mockups, and wireframes will serve as the solid background for making your optimization solution work as you want.

Design

Here, we carefully choose and pick the most effective and attractive design for your software. For freight forwarding software development, it’s essential to invent the program your workers can use intuitively and get the information on rates, shipments, and deliveries as fast as possible.

Coding

Once the software idea is put into action and gets its raw design, the development stage officially starts. Our task is to use all our expertise and skills to cover the core functions of logistics in a single digital solution. As a result, you’ll get a complete first version of your software.

Testing

Even though the software is ready, we won’t deliver it to you before the deployment and testing stage is complete. Our QA specialists will carefully check each button and field works according to the raw concept and your expectations.

Polishing and Maintenance

After a couple of final touches, we’ll forward you the logistics management system that is ready to use. Our cooperation is not over here, though: we’ll keep in touch to solve all the possible problems and assist in adjusting the core functionality for the needs of business scaling.

How AMCONSOFT Freight Forwarding Software Empowers Logistics?

Once developed carefully, custom freight management software will become a tool that puts all the key logistics processes in order and provides the solid background for wise decisions and business profitability. Release yourself from constantly fixing human mistakes and keeping dozens of things in your head — let the technology solve all these problems instead of you!  

Here is the set of advantages your logistics company will get by referring to AmconSoft:

AmconSoft is an experienced vendor in providing freight management solutions for logistics companies. Our full-scope software offering includes these components:

Make this custom freight management software yours! Get an end-to-end business solution from AmconSoft experts. We’ll be happy to contribute our 7-year experience for your business benefit.