Shipper Guide
Your customer doesn't know your 3PL's name
Nearly every shipper hands outbound freight, storage and fulfillment to 3PLs, brokers and carriers. There are good reasons to. It lowers cost, it scales, and it buys expertise in compliance, customs and specialized storage such as hazardous materials.
The cost shows up later. You lose operational control, connected systems and a clear view of what happened to your freight. But when an order arrives late or short, your customer calls you, not the 3PL. Detention bills and cargo theft still land on you. You own the customer and the claim, with little view of what caused the problem or how to fix it.
What we see at other shippers
We aren't experts in your operation. These are the problems we run into at other shippers. Check the ones that sound familiar, cross out the ones that don't, and tell us what we've missed.
- A customer asks where an order is, and your sales rep has to make several calls to find out.
- You hear that a delivery date moved from the customer, not from your partners.
- Detention bills arrive weeks later, and you have no record of your own to check them against.
- Every month you and your 3PL reconcile picks, storage and detention from two separate sets of numbers.
- You know which carrier was booked, but not who actually drove away with the load.
- Your procedures, such as temperature and seal checks, live in a binder at the 3PL. You find out one was skipped when a claim comes in.
- The same load gets typed into three systems and a spreadsheet before it ships.
Where disputes start
Follow one order from your sale to your customer's dock. Each company along the way keeps its own record, and the problems show up in the gaps between them. The numbers mark the spots where we see them most.
| # | What happens | Who records it today | Who gets the bill | What Dock Optimizer records |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The order changes after it reaches the 3PL | An email thread, if anyone kept it | Whoever shipped the wrong thing | The order the 3PL works from, pulled from its warehouse system and tied to the dock appointment |
| 2 | The truck waits past its free time at pickup | The driver logs one time and the dock's sign-in sheet shows another | Depends on who caused the wait. Often the shipper | Check-in and check-out times at the dock, with free time applied and the hours and rate itemized |
| 3 | Someone other than the booked carrier picks up | A signature on the bill of lading | The shipper, through the claim | A driver ID check and the carrier's MC and USDOT numbers, at check-in |
| 4 | The delivery date moves | A phone call from carrier to broker, maybe passed on | Nobody, until the customer relationship pays | The load's current dates and, where the carrier shares it, its location |
| 5 | The load arrives short or damaged | The receiver's notes, weeks later | The shipper, as a chargeback | Photos and checklist answers from loading, timestamped at the origin dock |
| 6 | The bills come in | Each side's own spreadsheet | Whoever loses the argument | One dock record both sides can read, with the 3PL's consent |
Why one record holds up in a dispute
Each company writes down only what it did. The 3PL records when the truck left its dock. The carrier records where the truck is. You record what you sold. Nobody can edit another company's entries. So when a detention bill is disputed, both sides are looking at the same check-in and check-out times instead of two spreadsheets. More on who pays for detention.
Example one
A steel service center sells to a truck maker
A live program. The participants are under LOI with Conmitto, so we describe them here rather than name them. We're glad to walk through it on a call.
A mid-market steel service center, owned by a private equity group, sells coil to a global truck maker's plants. It ships from its own dock, and a small trucking company with broker authority hauls the loads with owner-operators it works with.
| What happens now | Who | What everyone else sees |
|---|---|---|
| The truck maker sends a purchase order as a PDF | Buyer | Nothing yet |
| The service center turns that PDF into a sales order, with customer, PO number and lines filled in for the desk to check | Seller | The truck maker's PO shows as confirmed by the supplier |
| A load is booked with a pickup time at the service center's dock and the plant's delivery time | Seller, as shipper | The broker sees an offer carrying both dock times |
| The broker wins it and assigns a driver | Broker | The driver's phone shows both times and the reference numbers |
| The truck leaves the service center's dock | Service center | The order moves to shipped on its own. The truck maker's order reads as on its way |
| The truck is unloaded at the plant | Buyer | The service center sees the delivery |
The goal, and what hasn't changed yet. The program aims to cut the manual work on each load from about an hour to around 15 minutes. The truck maker's own appointment system still has to be kept up to date, and getting the processors onto dock scheduling is the next step toward that goal.
The catch most shippers never see
When a company with broker-only authority gives a load to an owner-operator, that is brokering, whatever the rate confirmation calls it. If your rate confirmation forbids re-tendering without written consent, Dock Optimizer asks the broker to stop and confirm before a driver goes on the load under a carrier with no authority of its own.
Why the owners care
Private equity groups like this approach because it turns operational efficiency into something they can measure, and it centralizes freight relationships and purchasing across the companies they own.
Example two
A food brand ships from a 3PL building
Now picture the setup most large shippers live in. A food brand sells cases to a national retailer. A 3PL stores the brand's product and ships the retailer's orders from its own dock. The brand sells the goods, and a different company loads them.
Now. The brand keeps its own account and its own sales orders. The 3PL's facts come from the dock: what was picked, what went into each pallet, which carrier took it and when the truck checked out. When the truck leaves, the brand's order moves to shipped. The 3PL writes its facts, and the brand reads them.
A buyer on EDI hears differently, but the facts are the same. A buyer on Dock Optimizer sees its purchase order move. A buyer on EDI gets a ship notice. Both come from the same moment at the dock. Sending those EDI messages from the dock facts is in development now.
Why pull once. Many setups put an EDI integrator between the warehouse system and each retailer, and it queries the warehouse system for every message. At a busy 3PL, one client's integrator can slow the building down for everyone. Dock Optimizer pulls on a schedule, stores what it learns once, and builds every record from that. Adding a retailer adds messages, not load.
Mistakes that look fine on screen
| The mistake | Why it looks fine | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Two ship notices go out for one shipment | Each one is valid | Receiving shows a discrepancy, which at many retailers means a chargeback |
| The 3PL invoices your retailer | Its system holds a price | The invoice is your claim for payment, at your price |
| The 3PL keeps your orders as its own sales | Every field copies over correctly | Your invoicing runs on someone else's record |
| Your customer marks your order shipped | It can see the truck | Your invoice starts on the customer's say-so |
One view and one audit log across your partners' systems
With more of the work handled by 3PLs, Dock Optimizer gives you visibility and an audit log across the separate systems in your supply chain.
One record per order
From the purchase order to the truck leaving the dock, across your own sites and your 3PLs.
Your procedures, enforced at the dock
Check-in and checkout steps, including temperature and condition checks, run the same way in every building and leave a timestamped trail.
Verified drivers
Driver ID checks and carrier MC and USDOT lookups at check-in, the link most fraud defenses skip. How driver verification works.
Detention you can check
Dwell from check-in to check-out, free time applied, hours and rate shown line by line.
Carrier performance
No-shows, dwell and on-time, by carrier and by facility.
Works with what partners already run
WMS feeds such as SphereWMS, EDI, project44 and FourKites visibility, and a live export to Power BI.
If you need to make the case internally
You may have to explain this to someone who wasn't in the room. Feel free to borrow this:
When we moved work to 3PLs we gained cost and scale, and we gave up our own record of what happens at the dock. Today our detention charges, missed shipments and chargebacks are measured by our partners, not by us. A shared dock record lets us check those charges, see which carriers and buildings cause them, and fix the cause. We can start with one building or one lane.
What we ask of your partners
Very little. Your 3PLs get a booking link at their docks, and carriers book without accounts or apps. A facility's data reaches a trading partner only with that facility's explicit, revocable consent, so this is something you do with your 3PLs, never behind their backs.
Many of them already know it. Teams from RXO, J.B. Hunt, Kuehne+Nagel, DHL, C.H. Robinson, Ryan Transportation, Forward Air and Uber Freight book freight into Dock Optimizer docks today, and Hanzo Logistics runs all seven of its Indianapolis buildings on it.
Start small
Most shippers start with one lane or one building and grow from there. See the booking experience in sixty seconds on a demo booking page, or book time with us. Questions go to support@conmitto.io.
Sources: Armstrong & Associates; industry detention and cargo theft data, as collected in The Physical Economy field guide.