A quotation is a document rather than an opportunity.
Buy and sell priced side by side from the rate tables, the minimum margin for that customer’s grade checked before it goes out, and every accepted line carried onto the shipment. What was quoted is what is billed, because it is the same line.
Priced from the tables, checked against the grade.
Air by weight break, LCL by revenue ton, FCL per container — contract or spot, from the rate tables in QMS. The buy line and the sell line sit next to each other, so the margin is visible while the quotation is being written rather than after the job is closed.
A line below the minimum margin for that customer’s grade still goes out, but only after someone with the right to approve it does so, and that approval stays on the quotation. Trade notices — congestion, equipment shortage, a surcharge — appear on quotations that use the affected lane. When the customer accepts, the shipment opens with these lines already on it.
| Charge | Basis | Qty | Buy | Sell | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ocean freight, LCL8.000 CBM / 12,000 KGS · W/M = 12.000 | Per W/MContract SEA-26-114, to 30 Sep | 12.000 | 780.00 | 1,044.00 | 25.3% |
| Terminal handling, origin | Per shipment | 1 | 145.00 | 185.00 | 21.6%Under grade minimum 22.0% |
| Documentation | Per B/L | 1 | 25.00 | 65.00 | 61.5% |
| Pickup, Vernon CA | Per truck2 hours free, then per hour | 1 | 245.00 | 320.00 | 23.4% |
An expired table cannot price a line.
Validity is not printed on the rate sheet as a reminder. It is enforced: once a table is past its end date, it will not price anything, and the quotation says which table stopped it.
The accident it is built against: a contract table ends on the 31st. On the 2nd the desk quotes twelve lanes from it, because the file is still open on the screen and the numbers still look right. Nothing appears wrong until the carrier invoices at the new tariff — and by then the customer is holding an accepted quotation in writing. The margin was never there; it had never been checked.
The morning queue therefore warns 30, 14 and 7 days before a table expires, and the table itself refuses to work once it has.
A rule that only warns is a rule that is clicked through.
The minimum margin by customer grade works the same way. It does not colour the line red and let the quotation go out anyway. It stops, asks for an approval from someone who is allowed to give one, and then records that approval on the document.
That record is the purpose. Six months later, when the job is being argued over, the question is never “was the margin thin” — it is “who decided that, and when”. A warning answers neither.
Where the quotation desk stops.
Difficult lanes are welcome.
The lane is priced from a table the office already holds, during the call, then accepted, and the same lines are followed onto the shipment and the invoice. 45 minutes, and the session ends with a written quotation.