A logistics business moves things, and every movement accumulates costs from carriers, fuel, handling and demurrage. If those costs arrive after the customer is invoiced, job profitability is a guess and the overage is never recovered.
This post covers what logistics ERP needs to do. It is the thinking behind our logistics industry page.
Cost capture against the job
Carrier invoices, fuel, handling and accessorials posted to the shipment they belong to, so job margin is real before billing. When third-party costs arrive after the invoice, the margin is a hope, not a number.
The shipment as a record
Parcels, tracking, milestones and documents on one object anyone can open — instead of a thread only one person can follow. When shipment status lives with the person who booked it, every handoff loses context.
Asset and fleet lifecycle
Vehicles as assets with depreciation, maintenance schedules and downtime recorded against the operations they interrupted. When maintenance is tracked separately from operations, breakdowns are surprises rather than scheduled events.
Recovery of what you are owed
Accessorial charges raised as they are incurred, so recovery is a workflow rather than an act of memory. Charges forgotten at invoicing are charges never collected.
Live job margin
Accumulated cost against what you will bill, flagged before the job slips below margin — so the operations manager hears about a bad job while there is still something to do about it.
How AlpineERP fits
AlpineERP covers the logistics depth above, and we configure it against how your business actually runs before you go live. See the logistics industry page for the capabilities in full, or how an implementation runs.