Contents
Customer Rate Cards
Job Matching
TLP differs from most Transport Management Systems in that it does not use a pointer system to select a rate card. A pointer system is one that generally will look at the customer for any job and obtain a specific rate card based upon a field stored against that customer. The problem with such systems is that all possible charges that could be made must be recorded within that rate card. This leads you to having a large rate file which is cumbersome and difficult to maintain. There is also the real possibility that jobs that vary from the norm will not be rated which over time will lead to a growing incidence of manual rating taking place.
TLP overcomes these problems by using a matching system to select the most appropriate rate card to use. The process involves the system selecting all rate cards that are effective and then working through them in order of their ranking (see next section for description of ranking). If the card data does not fit the job it is discarded and the next card investigated. The process continues in this fashion so that the highest ranked card with data that fits the job will be applied, this being the most appropriate card.
This system eliminates the need to develop large rate card sets for each client as the system will investigate client specific rate cards and general company ones when making its selection.
Ranking
When creating a rate card the system will assign a ranking when saving the card. All cards start with 8192 ranking points. From this points are deducted if fields are left blank. Deductions are of the following values;
Blank Field Points Deducted
Customer 4096
Service 2048
Depot 1024
Collect Name 1
Deliver Name 2
Collect Address Lines 4
Deliver Address Lines 8
Collect Post Code 16
Deliver Post Code 32
Collect Zone 64
Deliver Zone 128
Collect Region 256
Deliver Region 512
It is notable that fields that are quite specific to the job have higher ranking points. The highest of these is the Customer which ensures that customer specific cards will be investigated before general ones.
These ranking points may be altered if it is found they do not return the desired outcomes however at time of writing this does not appear to be the case.
Job Match
Fields that are used for job matching are shown below. Every rate card must have an effective date and expiry date set. The rating process returns all rate cards that that have an effective date that is less than or equal to the date of rating or an expiry date that is greater than or equal to the date of rating.
Minimum and maximum values are set if required on the Job Match screen. The descriptions entered against these will be recorded against the job and are able to be presented on invoices.
As can be seen from the ranking system the more job match fields that are populated the higher the ranking points however it may be appropriate to have minimal data. For example standard prices would be stored on a rate card with no customer details and could have only regional details.
Breaks
Each rate card consists of four breaks which form the basis of the calculations to be made. The breaks are applied in a specific order as follows;
Item Pricing of item lines
Actions Pricing of specific actions
Job Pricing based upon job level characteristics
Adjustments Adjustments to be made to the calculated price
Item Breaks
Item breaks are used if you wish to price at an item line level. Multiple items can be priced with scales applied. The screen below illustrates how this can work;
This break prices cartons in one of three ways.
- If the number of cartons is ten or less they are to be charged at a carton rate of $5
- If the number of cartons is between 11 and 16 they are to be charged at $4 each
- If the number of cartons is greater than 16 they are to be charged at a pallet rate of $35
Item breaks consist of item break lines. Each line is executed independently in the order they are displayed.
Each item break line provides you with four level of filters that can be applied to ascertain whether or not this charge shall be applied.
The first field in the item break line is a description. This description will be applied to the job if this rate card is used. It is then able to be used when printing invoices. Care should be taken to ensure this field provides the explanation a client would need.
If the item line is only to be priced if certain job characteristics are in place the fields provided above should be used. An example is livestock rating whereby the price is a per unit price (eg: $10 per cow) dependent upon the distance travelled. For a rate such as this the distance would form part of the filter above hence the line could read.
Distance is between 10 and 20 kilometres
Rate is $10 per cow
Full address matching can be applied at the item level also. This allows a rate card to be for a wider area (eg: Auckland to Waikato) with items being priced differently dependent upon the final destination.
The full set of address fields are provided. This would allow you to price items by exact addresses if you so wished.
The final two filters often work in unison so are displayed together above. The first section is the range of statistics that apply. In the above example the price will be applied if the quantity of the item is ten or less. Filters can be applied to any combination of the filters shown above.The final filter is the product code. This is optional however if it is used the price will only be applied to the product specified. Wild cards can be used on the product code. For example a product code of C* will price all products that begin with the letter C. Preceding wild cards will not be applied. For example *c will not find everything ending in c so will fail.
Action Breaks
The action breaks allow you to price jobs based upon the actions taken to carry out the job. These actions could be freight or non-freight actions (eg: waiting time, devanning and so on).
The example above illustrates how this functionality can be applied. It will calculate the job price including a line haul charge, a delivery charge to a surrounding town and if applicable a farm delivery charge.
Each action break line allows you to use filters at four levels to determine if the line should be applied to the calculation.
The first field in the action break line is a description. This description will be applied to the job if this rate card is used. It is then able to be used when printing invoices. Care should be taken to ensure this field provides the explanation a client would need.
If the action line is only to be priced if certain job characteristics are in place the fields provided above should be used. For example in a company standard rate card you may decide to charge a weekend surcharge but only for a specific customer.
Full address matching can be applied at the action level also. This allows a rate card to be for a wider area (eg: Auckland to Waikato) with items being priced differently dependent upon the final destination.
The full set of address fields are provided. This would allow you to price items by exact addresses if you so wished.
The other two levels of filters that can be applied relate to action specific fields being the type of action, the work type of the action and the collection and delivery points. In this example any action with a work type of Farm Delivery will be charged.
Any non-freight actions that you wished to charge (devanning, waiting time) could be charged by filtering for actions with the appropriate action type.
Job Breaks
Job level data can also be used to calculate charges. For example if you were to charge based upon a sliding scale schedule regardless of the products carried you would use a job break to define the calculation.
Job breaks can also be used to apply additional charges not related to any other job aspect. The example shown above is a booking fee which is to be charged regardless of the type of job or what has been carried.
The first field in the job break line is a description. This description will be applied to the job if this rate card is used. It is then able to be used when printing invoices. Care should be taken to ensure this field provides the explanation a client would need.
If the job line is only to be priced if certain job characteristics are in place the fields provided above should be used. For example in a company standard rate card you may decide to charge a booking fee but only for a specific customer.
Full address matching can be applied at the job level also. This allows a rate card to be for a wider area (eg: Auckland to Waikato) with items being priced differently dependent upon the final destination.
The full set of address fields are provided. This would allow you to price items by exact addresses if you so wished.
Adjustments
Adjustments are calculated as the final step in the rating process. These would typically be used for calculating such things as discounts and fuel adjustments.
The first field in the adjustment break line is a description. This description will be applied to the job if this rate card is used. It is then able to be used when printing invoices. Care should be taken to ensure this field provides the explanation a client would need.
If the job line is only to be priced if certain job characteristics are in place the fields provided above should be used. For example in a company standard rate card you may decide to charge a different fuel adjustments for different clients.
Full address matching can be applied at the adjustments level also. This allows a rate card to be for a wider area (eg: Auckland to Waikato) with adjustments being priced differently dependent upon the final destination.
The full set of address fields are provided. This would allow you to price items by exact addresses if you so wished.
Once the system has ascertained that the adjustment is to be applied the calculation will be carried out.
Calculation
Once the system has ascertained that the particular rate card line is to be applied the calculation will be carried out. Four fields are used in the calculation process.
Field This is the field name of any numerical field in the TN_Job schema. Care must be taken to use the full field name for fields that form part of an inline within TN_Job. For example Quantity will use the quantity at the job header level whereas Items.Quantity will use the quantity on the item line.
If you wish to charge the greater of weight or volume based on a 3 to 1 ratio you should use the field Rate_Weight.
Base This is an absolute amount that is to be charged.
Factor This is a rate that is to be charged for every one of the field specified. For example the screen above will charge $35 per pallet.
Category This should be specified if the value calculated is to be added into a category total. In the example above the value will be added into the FAF category for use in the FAF calculation which will be carried out at the end of the process.