Enabling agents to monitor profitability for each of their clients

To meet the relatively complex demands of the consolidation market, a computer customs clearing software system has to be carefully tuned to achieve a fast, easy and efficient result, according to Jan-Louis (J-L) Koekemoer, GM and systems architect at Shipshape Software. “Our software is very well suited to consolidators of road, air and sea modes of transport,” he told FTW. Over the past year the road freight fraternity in particular received a previously unseen amount of attention. This was brought about by the SA Revenue Service’s (Sars) electronic requirements for manifest information. “Our systems were developed and adapted so as to ease the burden of high-volume processing of consolidated shipments,” said Koekemoer. “Load planning for road freight becomes easy. Even if the individual shipments in the consolidation are already precleared, the user can still drag and drop individual shipments in and out of a consolidation, and then submit the final manifest.” At the same time, the system also accommodates airfreight and seafreight modules. “We are particularly well positioned in the airfreight consolidations market,” Koekemoer added. “Our system has features such as system-generated pre-alerts and electronic submission of air waybill information (including the air cargo consolidation manifest) to the airlines. This, in turn, brings about a cost saving for the agent as well as giving him realtime electronic status updates for each individual consignment directly from the airlines.” Koekemoer also pointed to another aspect that is often overlooked in the consolidation business – the accounting element – and stressed that the design of their system had given special consideration to this specific function. “Simply put,” he said, “most agents incur costs and pay creditors on master level. But they invoice their clients and report profitability down to house bill level. “Our built-in accounting module makes perfect sense of these requirements, and this allows agents to monitor profitability for each individual sub-shipment and, ultimately, for each of their clients.” INSERT & CAPTION ‘Particularly well positioned in the airfreight consolidations market.’ – J-L Koekemoer