Still Manually Entering Rates into Every Shipment?

Introducing the new CocoonOPS Automatic Rates Engine

Freight forwarding has become increasingly automated, yet one of the most repetitive tasks in many operations remains surprisingly manual.

Finding the correct rate and entering it against a shipment.

Think about how often this happens during a normal working day.

An operator creates a consignment, opens a supplier’s rate card, checks the trade lane, confirms the equipment type, looks at the validity dates, checks any surcharges and then manually enters the costs into their freight management system.

They might then repeat the process for the customer selling rates.

It’s not particularly complicated work, but it takes time. And when you’re handling dozens of consignments every day, those minutes quickly add up.

We’ve been looking at how to remove that repetitive administration from CocoonOPS.

The result is our new Automatic Rates Engine, the first phase of which is now available.

Why Is Freight Rate Automation So Difficult?

Anyone who has worked in freight forwarding will know that rate cards rarely follow a standard format.

You might receive a straightforward spreadsheet containing three columns.

The next supplier might send fifty columns covering multiple destinations, equipment types, weight breaks, surcharges and validity periods.

Then there are different commercial arrangements.

A shipping line might provide rates based on container type and trade lane.

An airline might charge according to weight breaks and chargeable weight.

A road freight operator might calculate prices using distance, loading metres or pallet space.

Some customers have fixed contracts, while others have pricing agreements that depend on the service, origin, destination or cargo characteristics.

There is no single format or charging structure that works for every freight forwarder.

This is one of the reasons automated rate management is more difficult than it might first appear.

Why Haven’t We Just Added an AI Rate Card Importer?

It’s a reasonable question.

AI is increasingly capable of reading spreadsheets, understanding documents and extracting information.

So why not simply upload any supplier rate card and let AI do the rest?

The problem isn’t necessarily reading the information. It’s interpreting it correctly.

A spreadsheet containing fifty columns might include several different conditions that determine when a particular charge applies.

One incorrect interpretation could result in the wrong rate being selected or an important charge being missed.

An AI-assisted import would still need suitable mapping, validation and testing against different supplier formats.

That doesn’t make AI unsuitable for this task. It simply means a reliable solution needs more than a document-reading model.

We’re not going to claim that CocoonOPS can automatically import every supplier’s spreadsheet when it can’t.

Bulk CSV rate-card uploads aren’t supported in this first phase.

Instead, we’ve concentrated on the most important part of the process: building a flexible rate engine that understands your pricing rules and can apply matching rates to consignments.

Introducing the CocoonOPS Automatic Rates Engine

The new engine allows freight forwarders to create rate cards based on their own commercial requirements.

You can define rates by:

• Transport mode, supplier, customer, agent or contract.
• Trade lane, carrier, service and origin or destination.
• Equipment type, container size and load type.
• Distance, weight, chargeable weight, volume or loading metres.
• Different pricing tiers, fixed rates and minimum charges.
• Incoterms and additional commercial conditions.
• Validity dates and currencies.

You can create buy and sell rates, configure the appropriate charging structures and assign financial account codes.

This provides a structured way to maintain commercial rates without having to repeatedly find and enter the same charges.

How Does It Work in Practice?

We’ve deliberately kept the operational process simple.

Once you’ve created your rate cards, open a consignment in CocoonOPS.

Under the Actions menu, select Generate Rates.

CocoonOPS checks the consignment information against the conditions you’ve defined in your rate cards.

The matching charges are displayed on screen.

The operator can review the results before accepting them.

Once satisfied, they select Apply Rates, and the relevant charges are automatically added to the consignment as estimates.

That’s it.

No manually searching multiple spreadsheets. No repeatedly entering the same rates into different consignments.

Importantly, the operator remains in control. Individual estimated charges can still be amended without affecting the original rate card.

If a rate card is subsequently updated, the new rules apply when rates are generated in the future rather than automatically changing charges already applied to existing consignments.

Could This Really Save Three Minutes Per Consignment?

We believe that’s a reasonable initial estimate, although we’ll need more operational data to establish the actual saving across different freight businesses.

Three minutes might not sound particularly significant.

But consider a freight forwarder creating 50 consignments every working day.

If automatic rates saved an average of three minutes per consignment, that would represent:

2.5 hours per day.

12.5 hours per five-day working week.

650 hours per year, assuming 260 working days.

That’s a significant amount of potential administrative time.

And importantly, it doesn’t require the business to increase shipment volumes or recruit additional employees to realise the operational benefit.

The actual saving will vary. Some consignments might only have a small number of charges, while others could have considerably more.

The aim is to reduce unnecessary manual work, not promise a fixed saving for every job.

Why We Believe This Matters

When people talk about freight software automation, the conversation often focuses on AI, tracking, visibility and document processing.

These are important areas, and we’re continuing to develop them within CocoonOPS.

But sometimes the biggest improvements come from addressing the smaller, repetitive tasks that operators complete dozens of times every day.

Opening a spreadsheet.

Finding the right line.

Checking the validity.

Copying the rate.

Entering the cost.

Repeating the process for the next consignment.

It’s these repetitive tasks that gradually consume operational capacity.

If we can reduce the time spent on rate management, document handling, purchase invoices and other administrative processes, operators can spend more time managing customers and shipments.

And that’s what freight management software should be doing.

Automatic Rates Is Included in CocoonOPS

The Automatic Rates Engine is part of the core CocoonOPS freight management system.

We’re not charging an additional subscription fee for the module.

Existing customers can request to have it enabled and start building their rate cards.

This is Phase 1, providing the foundation for further rate management automation as we continue developing the platform.

We’ve deliberately focused on building practical functionality that works within the everyday freight forwarding process.

Because automation should make life easier for the operator, not create another complicated system to manage.

Want to See How It Works?

If you’re currently managing your freight rates through spreadsheets or manually entering charges against every consignment, we’d be interested in showing you what we’ve developed.

You can see the Automatic Rates Engine alongside our other freight management and automation features in a CocoonOPS demonstration.