TMS Claims: Filing and Tracking Freight Claims

File a freight claim for damage, loss, shortage or delay in TMS → Claims, then track it from Open to Investigating to Resolved — claimed and settled amounts side by side.

Freight sometimes arrives damaged, short, late — or does not arrive at all. A claim is the written record you keep against the carrier for that shipment: what happened, how much you are claiming, and how much was finally settled. In Docklify you keep those records in TMS → Claims (/tms/claims): one list for every claim, with the claimed amount and the settled amount in separate columns, so nothing lives only in emails.

Step 1: File a new claim#

1. Go to TMS → Claims and click “+ New claim” at the top right — this opens the new-claim page (/tms/claims/new).
2. Choose the claim type: Damage, Loss, Shortage, Delay or Other.
3. Enter the claimed amount in USD — the amount you are asking the carrier to pay.
4. Write a plain description of what happened — what was damaged or missing, and anything the person investigating will need.
5. Click “Create claim”. You are taken back to the claims list, where the new claim appears with the status Open.

The form deliberately asks for just these three things, so filing takes a minute. On the list, each claim also shows an Order column and a Carrier column: when a claim is tied to a transport order, the order number and the carrier name are right there next to the amounts.

The five claim types#

• Damage — the goods arrived damaged.
• Loss — the goods (or part of the load) never arrived.
• Shortage — the goods arrived, but fewer than shipped.
• Delay — the shipment arrived late.
• Other — anything that does not fit the four above. The type is also shown under the claim number on the list, so the list reads at a glance.

Step 2: Find and check claims on the list#

1. Open TMS → Claims (/tms/claims). The line above the filters tells you how many claims are currently shown.
2. To find one claim, type part of its claim number in the search box and click Search (or press Enter).
3. To see claims by stage, pick a status in the Status dropdown and click Search. The filters only take effect when you click Search; Reset clears both boxes and shows everything again.
4. Read across the row: claim number and type, status, order, carrier, claimed amount, settled amount, and the time the claim was filed.

Clicking a row expands it: you see the description written when the claim was filed — and, depending on the status, the action buttons described in the next step. Click the row again to collapse it.

Step 3: Investigate a claim, then resolve it#

1. Expand a claim with the status Open and click “Investigate”. The status changes to Investigating — the claim now clearly has an owner working on it.
2. When the carrier answers and you reach an outcome, expand the claim again and click “Resolve”.
3. Type the settled amount when asked and confirm. The claim becomes Resolved, and the settled amount is written into its own column on the list — next to the amount originally claimed.

• Open — filed, nobody has started on it yet.
• Investigating — someone is working the claim with the carrier.
• Resolved — finished, with the settled amount recorded.
• Denied and Closed also appear in the status filter, for claims that were turned down or closed out.

Docklify features used in this article#

• Claims list with claim number search and status filter — TMS → Claims (/tms/claims)
• New claim form (type / claimed amount / description) — TMS → Claims → + New claim (/tms/claims/new)
• Expand a row to read the description and act — TMS → Claims, click any claim row (/tms/claims)
• Investigate and Resolve actions with settled amount — expanded row on TMS → Claims (/tms/claims)