Product
What FlowForwarder automates: from email to priced transport file
FlowForwarder covers the full brokerage chain: reading the request, creating the file, contacting carriers, comparing offers, applying your margin and generating the quote. By road and by sea, from pre-carriage to terminal charges at the destination port.
RE: quote 2x40'HC Shanghai → Radès
Hi, we need a rate for 2x40'HC out of Shanghai, FOB incoterm, textile cargo, ready on Aug 22.
- Origin
- Shanghai (CNSHA)
- Destination
- Radès (TNRAD)
- Mode
- FCL 2x40'HC
- Incoterm
- FOB
- Ready on
- Aug 22
The flow
From raw email to sent quote, in five steps
Every step stays under your control: the file is editable, messages are reviewed, the quote is approved before it goes out.
- Select a step to see what happens inside the tool.
Inbox
- Transport request — 12 pallets Sfax → Lyon
- RE: quote 2 x 40'HC Tunis → Abidjan
- LCL rate request Casablanca → Dakar
An email received at 9:12 becomes a complete file at 9:13, with the only missing field — cargo value — flagged and a follow-up message ready to send.
Smart intake: from email to structured file
It always starts with a message. “Hi, 12 stackable pallets, 6.8 t, loading Sfax on the 18th, delivered Lyon, your best offer?” FlowForwarder recognises a transport request, extracts the relevant fields and creates an immediately usable file: origin, destination, package count and type, gross weight, dimensions, calculated CBM, stated incoterm, loading window.
Attachments are processed like the message body: packing list, proforma invoice, spec sheet. When key data is missing — exact weight, precise delivery address, exact nature of the goods — the file marks it as to confirm and drafts a follow-up asking only the open questions.
In practice
An email received at 9:12 becomes a complete file at 9:13, with the only missing field — cargo value — flagged and a follow-up ready to send.
Multimodal: road and ocean in the same file
A file is not single-mode. A shipment from a workshop in Ben Arous to a Ghanaian importer combines road pre-carriage, port handling, ocean freight and final delivery. FlowForwarder models these legs separately and lets you compare complete scenarios instead of isolated freight lines.
On the ocean side, the FCL / LCL arbitration is explicit: full container 20' dry, 40' dry or 40' HC, or consolidation on chargeable weight/volume, with the matching destination charges — THC, deconsolidation, storage. The free demurrage and detention days quoted by each partner are kept, because a lower rate with seven free days can cost more than a higher rate with twenty-one.
In practice
On an 11 CBM shipment Tunis → Accra, the file shows a full 20' and a groupage side by side, destination charges included: the real gap appears, not the freight-only gap.
Sourcing and quoting: request, chase, compare
Once the file is created, FlowForwarder suggests the relevant partners for the corridor: road carriers, NVOCCs, ocean agents, fellow forwarders. A clear, consistent quotation request goes out to each of them, containing exactly the information they need to reply without coming back to you.
Replies land back in the file and are normalised: buying rate, currency, transit time, validity, free days, exclusions. Partners who have not answered are chased automatically after the delay you set. You then apply your margin — percentage or amount, per customer or per file — and the selling price calculates itself.
In practice
Five partners contacted in one action, chased automatically after 24 hours, then compared on price, transit and free days in a single table.
Email “as if it were you”
Brokerage relies on personal relationships. A message sent from a platform address breaks that relationship and regularly ends up in spam. Every message generated by FlowForwarder — quotation requests, follow-ups, quote delivery, information requests — leaves from your own mailbox, with your signature, in the existing conversation thread.
Nothing is sent without approval by default. You review, adjust the tone, add the sentence that makes the difference with a long-standing partner, then send. The tool drafts; you remain the sender.
In practice
Your customer receives a message from your address, in the thread they already know, with your usual signature. They see no difference — except the response time.
Documents and file tracking
Every file centralises its documents: the initial request, received quotes, issued quotation, customer confirmation, transport documents. No more digging through a twenty-message thread to find the approved version.
Quotes are generated on your letterhead, with the incoterm and named place, an explicit list of included and excluded items, and a validity date. The file status — quoting, awaiting customer, confirmed, in progress, delivered — gives an immediate view of your commercial pipeline.
In practice
A typical quote states “CIF Abidjan”, the included items, the excluded destination charges and a 10-day validity. Three invoicing disputes out of four disappear.
International by design
A file can mix freight bought in USD, pre-carriage in Tunisian dinar or CFA franc, and a sale in euro. FlowForwarder treats multi-currency as the norm rather than an exception, keeping the dated conversion rate on the file for margin analysis.
Local charges, which vary widely from port to port, are modelled separately from the main freight. That is essential on Europe–Africa and Asia–Africa corridors, where port handling weighs heavily in the door-to-door cost and where one omission turns a positive margin into a loss.
In practice
Bought in USD, pre-carriage in TND, sold in EUR: the real margin is calculated at the dated rate, not estimated at month end.
Shanghai → Radès
In progress- Quote approvedAug 4 · 10:24
- Booking confirmedAug 6 · 08:10
- Port departureAug 9 · 17:45
- In transitETA Aug 27
- Final delivery—
Requests handled
412
+18%
Quoting time
1h40
−62%
Win rate
31%
+6 pts
Quotes sent per week
Differentiation
What sets FlowForwarder apart from a classic TMS
Market TMS were designed for shippers with contract rate grids. Brokerage works differently.
- Email is the entry point, not a form your customers would have to learn to fill in.
- Multi-partner sourcing and offer comparison are part of the product, not an optional module.
- Road and ocean live in the same file, with the real cost items of each mode.
- Multi-currency and local charges are native, because Africa–Europe brokerage works that way.
- Messages leave from your address, preserving your commercial relationship and deliverability.
- Each organisation's data is strictly isolated: your buying rates feed no shared index.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about how it works
Your next transport request could already be a ready-to-quote file
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