Virtuoso Partners Article
When you want to ship something overseas, there is a lot of documentation involved. When you’re a business trying to move products, there is even more, as the bigger the package, the more rules you have to follow. The back-end workings of the freight industry might seem straightforward on the surface, but the reality is far from simple. In fact, creating, tracking and transporting the paperwork itself is causing a lot of problems for freight businesses. At Virtuoso Partners, we specialise in helping freight companies unleash the true potential of their IT systems through the effective automation of their logistics documentation.
Paperwork pains
If you work in the freight industry then you already know just how much paperwork you have to wade through every single day. If you don’t, then just know that it’s up in the thousands. It’s not that the freight industry is just churning out paper for the sake of it – it’s just that there’s a lot of paperwork involved in transporting things around the world. Just a few examples include:
Bills of landing
Purchasing receipts
Rental agreements
Customs manifests
Drivers records and logs
Fleet maintenance records
Trip information
And all of that is before you get to the essential back-end business processes like accounts receivable and payable, invoicing and freight approvals. When you multiply that amount of documentation by, say, 100 trips a day (a fairly conservative estimate), then the sheer volume of logistics documentation freight businesses have to deal with is staggering. For drivers, managers and office staff, trying to keep track or all of this paperwork is almost impossible, and it usually ends up with errors, time-consuming processes full of duplicated efforts, and often results in delays in deliveries and payments. In order to run an efficient freight business, every piece of logistics documentation needs to be available when it’s required. This is the main reason that many freight businesses have started looking at document automation as a way to relieve the pain.
How would document automation help?
Document automation provides a powerful, digital document management solution for freight companies. With automated document capture, freight companies can put all of their documentation for consignments in a logical order and at the fingertips of those who need to access it. Using advanced image management software, our document capture solutions can identify and collect consignment related information and associate it with the relevant documentation, for example linking purchase orders to container numbers and storing the information together under a single order number. This means that all logistics documentation can be viewed through a single web-based portal by anyone authorised to see it. This provides forwarding agencies with the information they need, advanced access to consignment documentation and more efficient logistics planning.
Our solutions also allow users to scan in documentation at multiple points and proves it digitally from something as simple as a mobile phone picture. This saves time, space and transportation of bulky paperwork, and ensures that logistics documentation is added to the systems and filed in a timely manner. Our document automation systems can also help automate proof of delivery reports, manage expenses, and match invoices or payments to other documentation within the system, ensuring full compliance and streamlined business processes.