What is a freight broker TMS?

A freight broker transportation management system (TMS) is a solution designed to help manage freight brokerage business more efficiently. It provides tools that help streamline daily tasks, provide full visibility into freight and automate virtually every step of load tendering.

Ideally, a freight broker TMS should help streamline day-to-day business operations. For example, it can make it easier to manage details of customer accounts by storing all of the customer information in a single online system. It also improves planning and decision making by helping to identify the most efficient transport options based on important business parameters such as cost, lead-time, number of stops and more. Plus, A TMS makes it quick and easy to manage billing and payments electronically, audit freight bills, and pull various reports needed to manage the financial aspects of the business.

Yes. A modern freight broker TMS will include embedded visibility solutions that reduce supply chain disruptions by automating communications and providing real-time visibility into shipments across multiple parties and modes of transportation. It provides real-time views of shipments and access to details like load status, ETA, and last known location.

First and foremost, it will eliminate most manual processes and streamline end-to-end transaction processing and tracking, from quoting to load assignment, management, and tracking, to financials. It can provide information needed to make fast, confident decisions in selecting the best mode and carrier to cover customers’ loads. Security features and permissions contained in a freight broker TMS will control who can view which types of information, such as potentially sensitive or proprietary data.

A well-designed TMS will let you quickly access and compare current and historical pricing information to help make the most informed choices to get the best possible lane pricing. It will also provide a number of management reporting and analytics tools to help you measure performance to make better informed strategic decisions. Document storage and retrieval options provided by a freight broker TMS will help reduce paper clutter and increase productivity by simplifying document imaging, management and distribution of vital documents. By giving real-time views into shipments and supplying status details for each load, a TMS helps the team react quickly to possible delays to improve customer satisfaction and increase on-time performance.

A transportation management system (TMS) should offer map-based dispatch, which provides an intuitive graphic view that’s easy for the organization to scan and monitor loads.