Login-Less Carrier Portal That Benefits Freight Brokers

A carrier portal can be a very valuable tool for saving your staff time. When implementing a carrier portal Broker’s must take into account several important questions.

1. How effective are carrier portals in the market today?
2. Do owner operators remember username and passwords for every broker they move freight for?
3. Why would a carrier login to a freight broker's website in the first place?
4. Can Carriers access their portal on Mobile devices?

3PL Systems has the answer to each of these questions… a Carrier Portal with no login required. This unique approach was created with you AND your carriers in mind. We have taken feedback from within the industry and successfully developed this user-friendly solution.

The Carrier Portal will allow carriers to log into their individual carrier portal by clicking on a hyperlink that is provided through quoting or tracking emails. The hyperlink can be saved as a bookmark on the carrier’s web browser for future reference. This provides a fast and secure way for your carriers to access their information without having to remember a username and password.

Below are some solutions the Login Less Carrier Portal provides to carriers and freight brokers.

Get Tracking Updates From Carriers
Your staff can email an Owner Operator to request tracking updates for your shipments. Owner operators can easily open the portal through a web enabled mobile device and communicate the latest shipment status instantly for all shipments currently moving. All shipment updates will be posted as a public note for staff and customers to view.

Respond to Quote Requests and Bid on Available Loads
Carriers will have a one stop shop to respond to your quote requests and bid on available loads. They can review the shipment information and submit a quote response through the Carrier Portal.

They also have the ability to login to their carrier portal to see available loads to bid on. You can make these loads available to them through our Carrier Spot Quote Section. This allows carriers to be proactive during the bidding process and search for uncovered shipments..

Give Your Carrier the Opportunity to Post Their Equipment
Your carriers can now post their available equipment on the new carrier portal. All available equipment that is posted will be available for your dispatchers to research when looking to cover a load.

For more information about BrokerWare Software please visit www.3plsystems.com or contact Customer Support at (800) 965-8205 or email Support@3PLSystems.com

Tracking Pages

BrokerWare’s tracking pages are designed to help promote time management within the application. These pages allow the user(s) to perform several tasks for a shipment without having to go to the shipment profile each time. This also allows user(s) the ability to update several shipments in the same amount of time it would take to update one. These changes can range from altering the shipment weight, to updating the status of a shipment.

Getting Started

Depending on the link selected from the home page, each tracking page will then display the according type of shipments. There are two types of tracking pages: a Primary Tracking page, which will display all loads per that status (ex. quoted, booked, dispatched, in transit, delivered) and a Filtered Tracking page, which are listed on the home page under the primary link with names such as “View by Carrier” or “Dispatch Today.”

These Filtered Tracking pages will sort all loads within that status/section and per your selection. For example, the “Dispatch Today” page, lists all loads currently needing to be dispatched with a pick up date of today or before. Primary and Filtered pages can be differentiated by the indentation on the home page.

Updating Shipment Status

Tracking pages can be used to update statuses for multiple loads at once. The listed shipments are initially collapsed on the tracking page screen, with an expand button on the far right to expand the listed shipment. When a load is expanded you can add shipment notes, change the pickup and delivery date, and even push the load into the next status. These options may change based on the status of the individual shipment.

Edit Commodity or Edit Pricing

On the tracking pages some shipment details are listed and underlined. This line indicates that an action is followed by selecting that value, such as shipment weight and price. By selecting either of the two the appropriate pop up window will be displayed (edit commodity or edit pricing) for that shipment. You can also select the Load Number that is underlined which will direct you to the individual load’s shipment profile.

Sorting

All tracking pages give you the option to sort information based on section headers. All underlined headers allow one to sort results based on that section. Note: when sorting based off of shipper or consignee location, the page will sort based off of the state acronym, and not the address. This is useful for your operational staff that monitors loads delivering to a state in a different time zone.

Filter List

Entering text into this field causes the page to refresh and display all loads with matching criteria. For example, if you enter a carrier SCAC code you will be left with all loads with that SCAC displayed as the assigned carrier.

Legends

Each load listed on a tracking page has a color coded indicator. The meanings of these colors change depending on the page you are on. The legend explaining the meaning of each color can be displayed by selecting the “Show Legend” link on the tracking page you are on.

More Options

When selected, the “More Options” link will expand and list all other filtered pages in that section. For example, if you are on the Dispatch Tracking page, the “More Options” link will display filtered pages from the home page, such as “Orders to be Dispatched Today”, “View by Carrier” and “Customer entered order”.

Check Boxes

The Check Boxes allow you to select and update multiple loads at once. Once making a few selections, click the “Save Selected” button at the bottom of the page. This will direct you to a page which allows the confirmation and status updates of all loads selected.

BrokerWare Defaults

With BrokerWare (BW) users have the option of setting system wide defaults to assist in managing their business. For example, these defaults allow users to set minimum mark ups, or the standard shipping date to use on your customer invoices. It is recommended that these are set immediately once your BrokerWare system is set up, and can also be adjusted at any time. Some of the defaults available are especially important to the function of your system. Always read the description of each default carefully prior to applying any changes.

Getting Started

The defaults page is accessible to administrator logins only. It can be accessed by selecting “Default Parameters” from the Admin Tools section, or from the Admin drop down menu in the navigation menu (note: the navigation menus will be changing with the October 2010 update, and defaults will then move to the new “Setup” drop down menu.)

Defining a default – Each default listed has a name which contains an abbreviation to indicate which area of the system it is for; “Comm”, “Operations”, and “Customer” are some examples listed. The remainder of the name following the abbreviations, dictate the action of that default.

How to Change a Default

From the default page, changes can be made based on your company standards and preferences by selecting the “Edit” link to the right of the default needed to be changed. Some defaults will only accept certain entries, which are listed in the description field of the default. Changes to defaults are system wide, unless other levels are set said criteria. For example, the “UserLTLMaxDisplay” setting can be modified at the customer level as well as on the defaults page. Hence, when changed at the customer level, changing the default will only change those that have not been modified.

Commonly Used Defaults

The most commonly used defaults are those pertaining to commissions, customers, and operations. These defaults allow users to set the absolute minimum profit margin, the default commission amount, and allow customers the ability to see carrier tracking data. Inspecting default settings to ensure company standards and preferences are met is recommended.

Defaults not Pertaining to Your System

With the scalability of BrokerWare, not all defaults may apply to your system. For example, if your company decided not to purchase the customer portal access, the defaults labeled “User” or “Customer”, will not apply to your company’s system of defaults. Please read each default description carefully before making any changes.

In addition, upgrades to BrokerWare can be done at anytime if your company decides to utilize these functions. Please feel free to direct any questions to our support department at (800)965 - 8205.

Certified QuickBooks Integration for Freight Brokers

Eliminating double entry into an accounting software package is near the top of every freight broker's "need" list when it comes to a Transportation Management System (TMS).

QuickBooks is very popular amongst freight brokers, so most TMS providers have integrations for QuickBooks. Unfortunately, not all QuickBooks integrations are created equally. Certain QuickBooks integrations provide only a one way manual export while others only offer summary information for accounts payable and receivable reports. In most cases that isn't enough.

3PL Systems has differentiated BrokerWare from the competition by providing a fully customized QuickBooks integration that has been tested and certified by an approved Intuit independent testing company named Intertek.


What this Certification means for Freight Brokers?

This certification ensures that your accounting integration is complete and functional. That way you don’t have to wait until after a completed integration to find out about problems. Instead, choose a QuickBooks accounting integration that was audited by an independent testing company and is certified by Intuit (the makers of QuickBooks).


Intertek Technical Review for QuickBooks

Intertek is an independent testing company chosen by Intuit to execute the QuickBooks Technical Review. All program specifics, including processes, test design, and program design, have been approved and are enforced by Intuit.

The QuickBooks Technical Review Program is designed to give the QuickBooks developer community the mechanism to ensure their applications meets the high quality standard of operation and compatibility expected by the customers. The purpose of the testing is to verify that 3rd Party applications appropriately integrate, exchange data, and are compatible with the QuickBooks platform.


BrokerWare Accounting Integrations

BrokerWare Accounting Integration is an automatic sync that pushes new and modified customer accounts, vendor accounts, sales accounts, receivable invoices, payable invoices, and commissions into an accounting package. The integration also automatically draws payment status information from the accounting package back into the BrokerWare TMS.

The 3PL Systems Accounting Integration is available on QuickBooks (Pro & Enterprise), MAS 90 / 200, and Microsoft Dynamics (Great Plains).

For more information about BrokerWare Software please visit www.3plsystems.com or contact Customer Support at (800) 965-8205 or email Support@3PLSystems.com

3PL Systems Integrates with Real Time Freight

3PL Systems has announced an integration with Real Time Freight within BrokerWare, their freight management application. RTF offers an on-demand, web-based technology platform that connects all participants involved in the management of freight transportation. RTF also provides an intuitive, closed-loop and centralized system which communicates time sensitive load information in real-time. This service provides significant business advantages to all subscribing shippers, carriers and freight transportation partners.

3PL Systems is confident this integration will increase efficiency and assist in streamlining your business. If you are interested in this integration please contact 3PL Systems at (800)965-8205.

BrokerWare Software Updates – October 2010

3PL Systems is very pleased to announce that NEW updates for BrokerWare are coming in October. There are many exciting features being added. The following is a list of the highlights:

Edit Shipment Pricing Window
We have updated the Edit pricing window to add the ability to assign pricing to stops. This update is designed to help with consolidation and full truckload shipments. We also make some usability changes to the page that should make it easy to use.

Calendar and Dates
Throughout the system we have updated the calendar and date entry boxes. You now have the option to manually enter the date rather that only being able to select it from the calendar drop down. The calendar is still available and has a new look as well.

Customer Portal
There is a new look to the customer portal. All the current functionality is still available. Some of the options have been moved, mostly on their home page. You will now notice a chart with shipment history at the top. We have also added some maps that show the number of inbound and outbound shipments based on state. These charts are intended to provide your customer with the ability to visualize the work you do for them.

Customer Portal - Security
Another very important change to the customer portal is the addition of security levels for customers. We have added 2 additional levels of security that can be set for each contact within a customer account. This will allow you to grant one user “Manager” access and another user with lesser permissions. These are the three levels of security:
•Full Access – Customer can create shipments and view all accounting information. This is the default security level and what all your customers are currently using.
•Operations – Customers can create and view shipments but they can not access accounting related information such as invoices and statements. They will see the billing amounts for specific shipments.
•Booking Only (Vendor Access) – Customers can only create and view shipments. NO BILLING AMOUNTS ARE DISPLAYED. This is the level of access that should be granted to customers, vendors or people that should not be allowed to review shipping charges.

Updated Menus and Searching
The menus at the top of the page have been completely redesigned. The new more modern menu system allows us to offer some new functionality.

Searching for customers and shipments has been added to the menu. That means on every page you will be able to enter a load number or customer name to jump directly to the next location.

Information Messages
We have added a tool that will change the way information is shared with you. With this release when you save information, you will be alerted at the top of the page. We have tried to make this consistent throughout the application. The color of the message is designed to help you identify what has happened with the desired action.
•Green – displayed on success.
•Yellow – shows a warning or validation error.
•Red – displayed when an error has occurred or the page could not be saved.
•Blue – displayed for informational messages.

Truckload Updates
A number of updates have been made to help improve and streamline the existing truckload tools. One of the main updates is to the spot quote section. We have updated the options for getting shipments on and off of the list.

We have also added functionality to assign a shipment to yourself or another operations person. This allows you to see and manage shipments that are assigned to you.

Combined Tracking Page (Truckload)
We have added an option to display a combined tracking page that will show all the shipments from quotes all the way to delivery. The combined tracking page is color coded to help keep all your shipments organized and moving forward. This page is optimized for truckload brokers.

There is also an option to change the home page to show much fewer links. For those of you who want to reduce the number of options in the operations and QA sections this might be right for you.

Commissions for Carrier Reps
Another big update for truckload brokers is the support for Carrier Reps to receive commissions. This allows for the Rep who is assigned to the shipment at the time it is dispatched to be added to the load and receive a commission. The commission can then be processed using the existing commission auditing tools. As with all commissions, the amounts are automatically calculated and updated based on the configuration of the rep.

Carrier Portal
This is the first release where we have support for a carrier portal. The carrier portal is designed to help small carriers work with you. They have the ability to update existing shipments assigned to them, as well as reply to pending quote requests. The new portal is accessed by providing a special link to the carrier. That saves them from having to remember a username and password. The new portal is also mobile friendly.

QuickBooks Integration Updates
A completely updated QuickBooks integration is included in this release. We have been working on this for almost six months. The update has been specifically designed to simplify our integration and reduce the issues that we currently deal with. One update that you will notice is that we now put integration and sync errors for shipments into the shipment notes.

Speed Improvements
All the new tracking pages and the quote page have been optimized since the last release. The functionality on these pages is mostly the same but the optimizations should make the page load in about half the time.

Consolidation
Based on your feedback from the previous release we have further refined our consolidation tools. With this release we have a much more complete and refined consolidation solution. We look forward to getting your feedback.

Freight Forwarding
This is our first release that will directly support freight forwarding operations. We have added substantial functionality to streamline some freight forwarding specific tasks like dispatching to multiple carriers and tracking individual segments of the shipment.

Please contact us at www.3plsystems.com or (800)965-8205 if you have any questions.

Increase Your Posting Exposure

The importance of posting to multiple loadboards at once is too often ignored. By posting your loads to multiple loadboards you are increasing your posting exposure ratio which is key to the success of keeping your trucks filled and loads moving.

3PL Systems has negotiated a great promotion with 123Loadboard.com. Now all 3PL System clients get a 3-month test drive of 123Loadboard.com's freight matching services when they start posting loads to their site. Integrating your loads with 123Loadboard.com is as easy as 1-2-3.

Contact your 3PL System Representative at 1-800-965 -8205 option 1 or call 123Loadboard.com's posting department at 1-877-875-5301, ext.3 for more details.

Never Pass on a Shipment Because of Credit Issues

Nothing is worse than denying a customer's request to book a shipment due to credit issues. Especially in this today's economy in which every shipment counts. Because freight brokers are becoming similar to banks, it is typically bad business to accept these orders. The risk of not being paid promptly, or at all, significantly outweighs potential profit for that shipment.

Credit card processing is one solution to this dilemma; however there are many of obstacles to overcome, such as the task of credit card processing for each individual load by your accounting staff. This process can be very time consuming.

What if there was a software application which allowed your customers to pay by credit card as they book shipments from your website? Meaning a customer can conveniently enter a shipment online, choose a carrier rate, transit time, and pay by credit card at once directly from your website.


BrokerWare Credit Card Processing

BrokerWare enables your staff and customers to pay by credit card directly from your website and TMS application. Customers can be individually configured to have options to pay, or to make payment by credit card mandatory while booking a shipment. They will also have the ability to pay for additional open invoices listed on their statement. Their credit information can also be saved to their account making it convenient to pay for future shipments.

Your staff will have the same options as the customer, giving you more flexibility when booking freight for non credit approved customers. To enable this feature an account with Paypal or Authorize.NET is required.

Process shipments faster for customer's without credit or over the credit limit and speed up payments by allowing customers to pay by credit card.

Please contact us regarding BrokerWare so we can setup this service for you today.

For more information about BrokerWare Software please visit www.3plsystems.com or contact Customer Support at (800) 965-8205 or email Support@3PLSystems.com

LOAD BOARD INTEGRATIONS

If you have not heard, 3PL Systems has integrated with many of the industry’s leading truck, freight and load matching boards. While the integration is included with BrokerWare, the individual load boards do charge a fee for their accounts. Below are the integrations we currently support.

*123 LoadBoard - Post Loads, freight and trucks; 24/7 truck loads posting.
*Get Loaded - Freight matching that’s simple, easy and fast.
*Internet Truckstop - Largest database of load and truck availability on the internet
*Post Everywhere - Enter loads or trucks once, then send them out to multiple Internet posting sites.
*3Sixty Freight Match (DAT / Transcore) - Largest Internet Load Board powered by DAT Network.

If you are interested in using any of these companies with your BrokerWare application, and would like to know their rates, services and contacts, please email kristen@3plsystems.com.

Thanks,

3PL Staff

3PL Systems Referral Program

We greatly appreciate referrals. There is nothing more valuable than having our current customers let other people in the industry know about our system.

Spread the word about 3PL Systems and BrokerWare and we will show you our appreciation. We will do this by giving you a discount on your maintenance fees.

Here is how it works:
1.Tell another freight broker about our system.
2.When they talk to us have them tell us that they were referred by you.
3.When they start using our system we will give you a referral discount on your maintenance fees.

The amount of the referral discount is based on the license agreement for the new customer. We will calculate it based on 50% of the maintenance fee paid by the new customer. We will apply the discount once they start using BrokerWare.

Thanks for helping us promote BrokerWare.

Become our Friend on Facebook...

3PL Systems, Inc. is now on Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter. To find us, go to our homepage and then click directly on the appropriate icons to become a fan or follow us. http://www.3plsystems.com

Managing Freight Has Never Been So Easy

3PL Systems has just released the second installment of software updates for 2010. The focus of this release is to improve efficiency for the most popular pages on our program, which include the order entry page and our tracking pages. We have also improved our contract management tool by adding pricing programs for sales reps to easily assign shipping rates to prospects and customers.

Enter a Shipment with Less Effort
The order entry page has been updated to add new functionality and a updated look to BrokerWare. Some items have been moved to more logical locations to further streamline the order entry process. Here are a few highlights:
-Address searching has become more dynamic and updates as you type.
-Multiple stops can be added before creating the shipment.
-The Full Form and Short form are linked with tabs and synchronize information between them.
-A new Map tab has been added that allows you to preview a route on the map.
-Product Selection has become more dynamic and updates as you type.
-Supplemental Charges show only the top 20 charges used by the specific customer making the list easier to work with.

Tracking Pages....More Content Without Sacrificing Space
Out with the old and in with the new! All the shipment tracking pages have been updated, so the pages are easier to read and show more dynamic content.

The default view shows less information but when expanding the row much more information and functionality is available without having to leave the page. You are now able to add notes and post updates without having to open any popup windows. This means you do not have to refresh the page every time you make an update. The page will then dynamically update the colors on the left to show you when other people have updated the shipment.

We have also added the ability to dispatch multiple shipments at once. For shipments that are dispatched outside the system this option will save some time.

Setup Pricing Programs for Customers & Prospects
Pricing Programs are a new feature for BrokerWare. A pricing program is designed to group tariffs together and allow them to be managed as a group. This means that you can add and remove an entire pricing program from a customer or prospect without having to deal with individual tariffs

For more information about BrokerWare Software please visit www.3plsystems.com or contact Customer Support at (800) 965-8205 or email Support@3PLSystems.com

Dynamic Searching

Using Dynamic Searching with BrokerWare Effectively

What is Dynamic Searching? – Dynamic searching is a new feature on BrokerWare that dynamically returns results as you enter the search criteria. Instead of typing your search and hitting a button to obtain results, Dynamic Searching produces results as you are typing. Dynamic Searching can be found throughout BrokerWare, most notably with the Customer Search and Load Search fields.

Basic Searching – By default, the results being displayed will be anything that contains the text entered in the search box. For example, if you search for “truck”, valid results would include: “ABC Trucking”, “Truckload”, and “Monster Truck”.

Advanced Searching – There are also times when you need to narrow your search and find items that begin with a letter or just a few letters. This can be done by prefixing your search criteria with the caret key, “^”. For example, if you only want items that begin with “truck”, you would type “^truck”. This will return results like “Truckload or “Trucking Company”, while excluding unwanted results like “ABC Trucking” or “Monster Truck”.

If you are having trouble getting any results, using the caret key "^" by itself will return the top few items.

truck Containing "truck"
tr Containing "tr"
^tr Starts with "tr"
^truck Starts with "truck"
^ Show first few results

BrokerWare Software Updates – June 2010

There are many new enhancements and features that have recently been added to our BrokerWare application. Below is an overview of the updates.

1. Quote Page - Order Entry - The quote page has been updated to improve usability and streamline the order entry process including: address searching is dynamic and updating as you type, multiple stops can be added before creating the shipment, the Full Form and Short Form are linked with tabs that synchronize information among them, a new map tab has been added that allows you to preview a route on the map, product selection has become more dynamic and updates as you type, and supplemental charges show only the top 20 charges used by the specific customer making the list easier to work with.

2. Tracking Pages – The tracking summary pages including pending quotes, orders to dispatch, confirm pickups and the in transit page have a new look and feel. The new version is intended to improve collaboration within your team. We have also added the ability to dispatch multiple shipments at once. For shipments that are dispatched outside the system this option will save some time.

3. Accounting Pages – The Confirm Carrier Charges and Receive Payables pages have been completely redesigned. The new version is intended to improve collaboration within your team.

4. Pricing Programs - Pricing Programs are an upgrade to the existing coupon codes and are a new feature of the application. A pricing program is designed to group tariffs together and allow them to be managed as a group. This means that you can add and remove an entire pricing program from a customer without having to deal with individual tariffs. You can also link a sales rep and a group of tariffs to a customer. Once customers are linked you can also manage the entire group of customers from that pricing program.

5. Consolidation - We now have a new load type called a consolidated load. When working in the system the consolidated load will be linked to multiple LTL loads. Using the consolidated load type allows for a single payable invoice to be used for a group of shipments. We have also built a consolidation organizer. In the organizer you can see shipments that can be used to build a consolidated shipment. When building the consolidated load you can reorganize the stops and see the mileage between the locations. If you are interested in using the consolidation tools please contact us.

6. EDI Usability - Processing of EDI exceptions has been updated to speed up the processing of the exceptions. This project changes the interaction with the EDI Documents that were not able to be matched. The focus was to make the EDI data easier to work with. We made changes on the carrier list to provide details about the open files. We also improved the popup and file list to allow multiple records to be updated at once.

7. Online Credit Cards - In the last release we announced that we could integrate credit card acceptance into the application. With this release we have extended and streamlined the functionality.

8. Document Storage Updates - Document storage has been updated to allow for quick uploads of multiple documents. We have also added a tool to manage the documents that have not been matched to loads.

9. Check Call Contact - In addition to the carrier dispatch contact we have also added a check call contact that can be used to store the driver name and number.