Technology consulting for brokers and 3PLs

Where brokerage margin disappears

Brokerage looks simple from the outside: buy a truck for less than the customer pays. Inside, every load passes through carrier sales, compliance, dispatch, tracking, billing and AP, and each step has its own way to lose money or create risk.

• Carrier onboarding and compliance. Authority, insurance certificates, safety ratings, W-9s and payment details are collected by email and stored in folders. Insurance expirations aren't monitored, and the controls that guard against fraud and double brokering depend on whoever happens to be onboarding that day.
• Capacity sourcing and the load board. Loads are rekeyed into posting sites, carrier sales reps work from inboxes and personal spreadsheets, and the carrier history that should make the next booking faster lives in someone's head.
• Margin per load. Buy and sell rates live in different places, so true margin isn't known until carrier pay is final. TONU, detention, layover and lumper charges get paid to the carrier but never billed to the customer. Spot and contract freight are mixed together in the reports.
• Tracking and visibility. Check calls are made by phone and logged inconsistently. Customers want EDI 214 updates or portal access, and exceptions such as late pickups or missed appointments are found after the customer calls.
• Carrier pay and AP. Carrier invoices have to match the rate confirmation, a POD has to be on file, quick pay and factoring company notices of assignment have to be honored, and duplicate payments have to be caught. Done by hand, that's slow and error-prone.
• Customer billing and EDI. EDI 204 tenders are keyed manually, 990 acceptances are late, and EDI 210 invoices bounce because a reference or POD is missing.
• Asset and brokerage under one roof. Carriers with a brokerage division need shared customers, separate P&Ls, and clean handoffs when freight moves from company trucks to outside carriers.

How Strong Tower practices apply to brokerage

The load lifecycle, end to end

Business Process Optimization maps the full lifecycle: tender, carrier selection, onboarding and compliance check, rate confirmation, dispatch, tracking, delivery, customer invoice and carrier pay. We remove rekeying, put compliance checks where they can't be skipped, and set clear rules for when a load can be billed and when a carrier can be paid.

Margin by load, rep, customer and lane

SQL Data Mining & Analytics reports gross margin per load and margin percentage by customer, lane, carrier and rep, and separates spot from contract. We compare accessorials paid against accessorials billed to find leakage, and track carrier performance so reps book good carriers first.

Tracking, EDI and accounting connections

ELD, EDI & Back-Office Integration covers tracking feeds, EDI 204/990/214/210 with your shippers, carrier invoice and POD imaging, and the interface to accounting so AR and AP post cleanly.

Requirements before software

A brokerage TMS and an asset TMS are built for different jobs. Business Analysis documents what your operation needs, and TMS Selection & Advisory runs a vendor-neutral selection if a change is warranted. Reporting & Business Documents delivers the rate confirmations, invoices, carrier settlement statements and rep scorecards you run the business on.

What an engagement looks like

Every Strong Tower engagement follows the same arc: Analyze, Streamline, Deliver, Sustain (see How We Work). What changes by segment is where we look first and which numbers we put in front of you. For a brokerage or 3PL, a typical engagement runs like this:

1. Discovery. We sit with customer reps, carrier sales, compliance, tracking, billing and AP, and follow a handful of real loads from tender to carrier pay. Then we review the TMS, posting and tracking tools, and the accounting interface.
2. Findings. A written assessment ranks issues by margin and risk: accessorial leakage, onboarding gaps, rekeying hours, days to bill and days to pay.
3. Plan. Scope, owners and schedule, with compliance controls and billing leakage addressed first.
4. Execute. Process changes, configuration, integration, reports and training, managed to plan.
5. Sustain. KPIs such as margin per load, accessorial capture, days sales outstanding and on-time tracking updates, reviewed on a set cadence.

Most clients start with a fixed-scope Technology Assessment.

Signs it's time to bring in help

It's usually time to call when growth has outrun the process, or when a margin or compliance scare forces the issue. Common triggers:

• Gross margin per load is only known after carrier pay is final.
• Carrier onboarding depends on one person's checklist and inbox.
• Carrier invoices are matched to rate confirmations by hand and duplicate payments have slipped through.
• Customers are asking for EDI tenders, 214 updates or portal visibility you can't easily provide.
• An asset division and a brokerage desk are sharing customers without a clean way to separate the P&L.

These problems compound as volume grows. Fixing the process and the system setup now is far cheaper than fixing it after the next growth spurt.

Frequently asked questions

Truckmate is a trademark of its respective owner (Trimble Inc.). Strong Tower Consulting is an independent consulting firm and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Trimble or TMW Systems.