Intermodal Container Solutions
“We’re having to buy or rent more chassis. How are we going to track them?”
Key solution: Comprehensive chassis control is a built-in part of Profit Tools Dispatch. You can manage hooks and drops of your chassis inside or separate from your customer shipments. Profit Tools can show you a complete history of the chassis movements, and if any have been dropped, tell you where, when, & by whom. And of course, this equipment control capability applies to your containers and trailers, too!
“Increased per diem and demurrage rates with shorter free times.”
Key solution: Profit Tools gives you the ability to track every piece of Intermodal equipment from start to finish. With Track & Trace™, the system gets the latest status and availability information on inbound equipment direct from the ports and ramps. In Dispatch, the system shows your last free dates, so you avoid demurrage and unapproved per diem charges. Profit Tools calculates per diem, so you can bill back accurate per diem fees to the customer at initial invoicing, or tell a customer in advance how much it’ll cost if they hold a container. Profit Tools also allows you to e-mail copies of EIRs, PODs and accessorial charge notifications from any desktop, reducing the hassle of finding paperwork and records for documentation.
“We’re swimming in paper.”
Key solution: Profit Tools solutions can reduce the amount of time your staff spends on filing, researching, copying, faxing and filing documents. With solutions such as Document Imaging, Auto-Email, and EDI and Invoice Transfer, information is readily available to your office and your customers, significantly reducing paperwork and delayed billing.
“Manually tracing the status of incoming containers is too time consuming.”
Key solution: Track & Trace™ from Profit Tools puts the control of tracking rail and terminal shipments all under one roof and delivers the information to you the way you need to see it. Track & Trace continually searches and updates shipping statuses from multiple rail lines and terminals. This gives your company a direct advantage of getting better information faster, and avoiding costly mistakes, improving accuracy, reliability and timeliness.
“We’re being asked to provide empty availability status on our containers by the lines.”
Key solution: Profit Tools Equipment Posting module will get the information about available empties out to Loadmatch.com, Synchronet, and others who may require it. It doesn’t cost you extra labor, and you retain control over holding certain units back from posting or aliasing certain locations so people reading the posting won’t automatically know who your customers are.
“We run a depot and a trucking operation. How can we cross-check our gate activity without giving up equipment control?”
Key solution: Profit Tools Depot Systems integration gives you a report of discrepancies so that you can take action — or take no action — as the situation requires.
“We run another software that claims to be for intermodal. But the popup screens and work-arounds they put you through to record basic information will make your head spin — and even then you can’t track chassis or per-diem.”
Key solution: Profit Tools has container-specific order entry and dispatch screens that capture all the date and routing information for imports & inbound, exports & outbound, and cross-towns/one-ways/repos. We’ve been built from the ground up to manage this information, so you won’t keep tripping over the system. Plus, if you do other type of work in your operation, our screens look different for those loads, so you won’t be tripping over the container information when it doesn’t apply.
“Our customers are demanding more visibility on their shipments.”
Key solution: Give customers access to check up to the minute details on their shipments on-line through activeT.R.A.C. As soon as event information is updated in the Profit Tools database, it is available for your customers to view over a secure website. Linked with Profit Tools Mobile Direct or Mobile Comm interfaces, activeT.R.A.C. provides a direct status feed from the driver’s cab to your customer’s desktop. EDI and Email updates can also be automatically sent to those customers who require their systems or their staff alerted with equipment and event information in a timely manner. Profit Tools customer service tools provide a proactive approach to getting your customer the information they need when they need it – or before!