TMS: freight transport essentials

Transport orders, carrier tendering, consolidation, tracking, POD, and freight billing with audit.

TMS (Transportation Management System) plans and executes linehaul freight: create transport orders by hand or auto-generate them from WMS loads (LTL/FTL only — parcels stay out), tender or directly assign carriers, track in transit, collect POD, and settle freight bills.

Core workflow in 5 steps#

1. Create the transport order (TO-000001): origin, destination, mode (LTL/FTL/parcel), weight, pallets, dates.
2. Dispatch: either assign a carrier directly, or send tenders and let carriers accept/decline in the Carrier Portal.
3. Optionally consolidate several orders into one shipment (SH-) that moves through statuses together.
4. Track execution: picked_up → in_transit → out_for_delivery → delivered, with GPS-stamped tracking events; drivers advance statuses from the mobile app.
5. Collect POD (photo goes to the Documents center), then build the freight bill (FB-), audit it against quoted costs within tolerance, and settle.

Related systems#

• WMS — ready loads generate TMS orders automatically; picked_up/delivered write back to WMS.
• Carriers and drivers come from shared master data (shared_carriers / shared_drivers), reused by Drayage and LastMile.