Who it is for — CFS and warehouse

The clock starts at the receiving scan.

Free time is counted in business days. Money is counted in calendar days. Every CFS tariff in the country is written that way, so they are two rules here and two switches, not one with an opinion. The clock starts at the receiving scan and stops at load-out, which is how the storage charge reaches the invoice instead of a note in somebody’s diary.

Get a demo Pricing

Of the eleven steps

Storage not yet charged, cargo that arrived and cannot leave, and money leaking quietly.

Switches on storage

Business days for the free period, calendar days for the charge. Merged into one, a business-day count on the money side charges about 29 per cent less.

This floor’s day

Three steps of the eleven, and the work between them.

Ordered by the cost of leaving them alone. The right column states what each one costs if it is left unattended.

Storage past free time and not charged

Free time over, and no charge raised yet

The ones where free time is over and no charge has been raised, then the ones whose free time ends today, before they become the first list tomorrow.

Storage that is never raised is not a discount anyone chose to give. It is revenue that left the building without anyone deciding.

Arrived, and not released

On the floor, and customs has not released it

Cargo on the floor that customs has not released, and consolidations past their ETA with no arrival recorded against them.

Cargo that cannot leave still holds a spot, and the spot is what the warehouse sells.

Money leaking quietly

Six ways money stops moving, on one list

Delivered more than 45 days ago and never invoiced. Shipments with no delivery date, which never age at all. Receivables past credit terms — and the customers with no credit terms set, where this system says it cannot tell whether they are late. Storage rules that could not work out an amount.

When a rule cannot compute, it does not invent a number: this rule charges per revenue ton and there is no volume on file. A visible blank is better than a figure that cannot be checked.

Receiving, stock and picking

The scan on the dock that starts the clock

Receiving scans, locations, per-shipper stock, piece labels, walk-order picking and cycle counts. The field app scans with the browser’s barcode reader and a zxing fallback, takes photo, signature and GPS on the proof of delivery, queues offline, and speaks four languages.

Not one of the eleven, but this floor’s own. Thirty screens, eleven of them the app in a hand on the dock, where the scan that starts the storage clock is taken.

What this floor switches on

Three systems, two extensions, and a short list of what stays off.

A system that is off has no menus, rather than greyed-out ones, and is not billed.

WMS

Dock to signature · 30 screens

Receiving scans, locations, per-shipper stock, piece labels, walk-order picking, cycle counts, storage charges and the rules behind them. Pickup and delivery runs, and the field app on the other end with an offline queue so a scan taken in a dead spot is not a scan lost.

SCM

The base · 41 screens

The shipment the storage line lands on, the customer card with credit terms, month-end billing across every shipment on one screen, and the job’s profit while the job is still open. A storage charge that is not attached to a shipment is a charge that never gets billed.

Portal

Customers serve themselves · 65 screens

The shipper watches their shipments in progress, pulls documents and proof of delivery, books a pickup and sees the invoice with its balance — instead of calling the desk during the hour the dock is busiest. Their requests land in one staff inbox.

Connect

Extension

QuickBooks both ways, so the storage line that started as a scan on the dock ends up in the books and the payment reads back and flips the invoice to paid. Container and air waybill tracking.

Insights

Extension

Nine standard reports and saved views, and a Monday morning email that goes out whether or not anyone opens the screen — which matters on a floor where nobody is at a desk on Monday morning.

What stays off

And why it is not billed

ABI, unless the warehouse prepares the filings itself rather than working behind a broker. QMS, unless it quotes from rate tables. Dispatch, unless it owns the trucks — the pickup and delivery runs are inside WMS either way. Parcel, unless it sends parcels.

One real screen

Storage, on the two counts that bill.

One tariff line — five business days free, then per day, minimum ninety-five — applied to five shipments. The same weekend is free on one row and charged on another, and that is the rule working.

Storage — rule 5 W DAYS free, then 37.50 per day 3 not charged

Storage charges — five working days free, then per day
Shipment	Receiving scan	Free through	Charged days	Amount
AMCH-2608-0331	21 Aug 09:14Friday	27 AugSat 22 – Sun 23 inside free time, free	6Calendar, incl. Sat 29 – Sun 30	225.00 Not charged
AMCH-2608-0344	24 Aug 07:52	28 Aug	5	187.50 Not charged
AMCH-2608-0359	26 Aug 14:03	01 Sep	1	95.00Minimum, applied once at the end
AMCH-2609-0012	31 Aug 10:20	04 SepFree time ends Friday	0	0.00
AMCH-2608-0298	19 Aug 11:40	25 Aug	8	Not calculatedRule charges per revenue ton; no volume on file

Free time counted in business days · charged days counted on the calendarTwo switches

The last row is not a bug

The rule cannot price without a volume, so it says so and stops. It does not fall back to zero and it does not leave the row out — either one would turn an unbilled shipment into a shipment nobody remembers.

Two counts, two switches

A weekend inside the free period is always free. A weekend after it is charged, because the money side runs on the calendar. Merging the two into one setting means picking a side: a business-day count on the money charges about 29 per cent less, and a calendar-day count on the free period quietly shortens what was promised to the customer.

The minimum is applied once, at the end, and never to cargo that left inside free time. A minimum charged on a shipment that used no storage is not storage. It is a penalty with a storage line’s name on it, and the customer reads the tariff too.

How the storage clock is kept →

Get a demo

Forty-five minutes on a real shipment.

One receipt is taken from the scan on the dock to the storage line on the invoice, on a demonstration company or on a copy of the warehouse’s own spreadsheet. The warehouse’s own tariff is welcome. The session ends with a written quotation.

Get a demo See the platform