Freight Management and How it Works

If you’re in the product manufacturing or distribution business, then freight makes up a significant part of the service you deliver to your customers.

And that means how you manage your freight can have a significant impact on your bottom line.

In this article, we’re going to take a look at the benefits of implementing Freight Management Software into your supply chain, and how the right technology solution can transform logistics for your business.

What is Freight Management?

If you’re moving goods in your business, then freight management plays a huge part in delivering high quality service to your customers.

Getting your freight where it needs to go requires many, many steps.

First you have to get quotes for your freight and work out the best carrier to send with. Once you’ve done that, you need to book the freight to be collected, pack the freight, track the freight, and make sure it gets safely to its destination.

But it doesn’t end there. You’ve then got to check and reconcile your freight invoice to make sure everything’s correct.

It sounds like a simple process. Until you need to scale it.

When you have huge volumes of freight moving through your supply chain, things get much more complicated.

Not all your freight will be sent with one carrier. You need to choose freight partners based not just on price, but based on their skillset with freight types and delivery locations.

You’ve got complexity in the type of freight you’re sending, where you’re sending it to and how it’s going to be packaged and sent out, as well as the invoicing that comes in at the end.

Scalability is important to every business. So how do you scale your complex supply chain without adding more people to it?

You implement a system that managed the whole process from start to finish. One that gives you visibility across your whole supply chain.

You implement Freight Management System Software.

How Freight Management Software Works?

A Freight Management System simplifies the complexity of your freight. By managing everything through freight management software, you can quote, book, track, trace, and reconcile the invoicing for your whole supply chain through a single interface.

You can easily see things like which carrier is the cheapest, which carrier is the quickest, which can handle unique freight (such as dangerous or medical goods), and who has the lowest carbon emissions, so you can choose the freight solution that’s right for your business, consignment or customer.

Once you’ve obtained a quote and booked your freight, the system can also be set up to track and trace your freight, including sending notifications to your customer.

And finally, on the backend, it will check each and every freight invoice and automatically identify discrepancies between the quote and the final invoice.

A Freight Management System gives your business a seamless supply chain experience, no matter what carrier you’re using, or the type, or quantity of freight you ship.

Selecting And Managing Vendors And Carriers

In Australia, there are over 10,000 freight carriers.

All of these are different sizes and have different skill sets and capabilities when it comes to freight. They take different types of freight, they price their freight differently and they have different schedules they deliver to.

Add that to the fact that Australia is so big, and sending freight becomes really, really complex.

This means choosing the right carrier for the right freight can be challenging. And often you’ll be managing more than one vendor relationship to meet all your freight requirements.

But when you put the right Freight Management Software in place, you’ll be able to more easily manage all your carriers, from the one place, giving you the ability to compare services and the flexibility of choice.

Benefits Of Using Freight Management Software For Your Business

Streamline Multiple Carrier Booking

If you’re using more than one freight carrier, you’ve got multiple ways of booking your freight. You don’t want to have to go through each carrier's website and manually compare them, let alone having to manually keep track of your consignments once they’ve been collected and are on route.

Freight Management Software brings all your carriers into one system, creating a massive time saving for your business. It’s one interface that allows you to book your freight, compare carriers and then keep track of each booking and consignment number, all in one place.

Easy Invoice Reconciliation

In Australia, approximately 5 – 7% of freight invoices are incorrect – and they’re almost always overcharged.

Without Freight Management Software, you’re either manually checking invoices to ensure they’re correct, or you’re paying invoices that are incorrect.

The right technology will save you time and money by reconciling your freight invoices for you and making you aware of any errors (without having to check things line by line).

An Optimised Workforce

As you grow, you need more people. But with Freight Management Software, you can optimise your workforce.

The system will reduce the requirement for manpower when it comes to booking and managing freight. It will even automatically print all your freight labels and reduce manual intervention from warehouse staff.

It will also reduce Keyman risk; with the system holding all the important information, if one of your team is out of action, your supply chain can keep running smoothly because all the processes are kept in the software, and not in the memory of a key staff member.

An Optimised Customer Experience

A good Freight Management System will allow you to control your end customer experience through the messaging they get.

Text messages, ASNs and other notifications can all be setup and managed automatically by the freight management software.

Integration with other Business Systems

Already have an ERP or other business software?

No problem. Freight Management Software has the ability to sync between an ERP and FMS orders, labels, tracking information, PODs and other key business data.

A good Freight Management System allows information to sync simultaneously so that you've got the orders in either system and you have a single source of truth that allows the data to flow back and forward as required.

Integrating your Freight Management System with your existing business system means your employees don’t have to even learn new technology. Your customer service people can use your ERP to see where things are at any point in time and all the freight complexities are hidden beneath the surface.

Discover More About Cario Freight Management Software

The most important things you want from your Freight Management Software are agility and flexibility.

And that’s where Cario is a great solution for any business.

Our Freight Management Software can fit around your business requirements without you having to change your freight process.

It’s fully customisable to your existing supply chain needs and built in Australia by a team who are specialists in freight.

To find out how Cario can optimise delivery outcomes and help your business make data-driven decisions on freight, get in touch with our team today.