A Carrier Account in MachShip stores the specific settings that exist to connect your company to a carrier. This includes the fuel levy, rates as well as any IT related information such as tracking usernames and passwords, booking usernames and passwords, consignment prefixes and number ranges. Though each Carrier Account has the same format, each Carrier requires their own unique set of options and setup. 

Creating a new Carrier Account for a new Carrier

If you are creating a new Carrier Account for a carrier, and you have not yet created a fuel surcharge for that carrier, it is important that you create the fuel surcharge first. You will not be able to create and save a new Carrier Account without creating a fuel surcharge first.

In order to see how to create a fuel surcharge please go to this link.

How to navigate to create a new Carrier Account 

There are two ways to navigate to Create Carrier Account screen: 

• From the main menu: Admin > Carrier Accounts.

• From the direct link here.
  
  Note: If you do not have access to create carrier accounts you will not be able to access the above link.

Create a Carrier Account screen 

1. Carrier Account Information:

A carrier account requires the following information:

• Account Name: This is a free text field and it's simply used as a unique identifier 
• Account Code or Abbreviation: It needs to be the account code that will be used on the invoice 
• Carrier: Carrier for which you wish to access the rates. Once the first two characters are entered MachShip will provide a list to select from 
  
  
• Owning Company 
  
  
  
  
• Fuel Surcharge: When you have entered the company and carrier combination a drop down will appear with a list of all applicable fuel surcharges for that carrier. This is why you need to have created the fuel surcharge before you create the carrier account otherwise this list will be empty. 
  
  
  

• Consignment Prefix: It is the unique code which will be given upon request from the carrier.

There are also some optional fields. These will be left as the default for the majority of accounts. 

• Parent Account - If you have a series of accounts with the same rate setup but different sets of specific options the parent account can hold the rates which are accessible for all the children accounts. 
• Default Company Carrier Account - This is used when syncing the account with the Capital Transport system. This should remain blank unless otherwise told. 
• Cost Consignments Manually: It allows broker users to modify the cost price of consignments.
• Break up combined items for paperwork: Set this option if you want to print a separate label for each sub item when using the combined item type. 
• Ignore Sizing Restrictions - if there are any service sizing restrictions which will not apply to this account select this button - this is applicable mostly with Capital Transport. 
• Only Apply the Most Expensive Break Set: If this is set, only the most expensive set of breaks will be applied, and the rest will be ignored, otherwise, if there are multiple break types then they will be summed together. 
• Use Ratecard Pricing When Present: This option would be utilised where the carrier is setup for external pricing and you wish for MachShip to price off an uploaded ratecard.
• Auto Manifest on Consignment Creation: For all non-courier servicing companies, MachShip has a defined consignment creation and then manifesting step. As couriers have services which are time-sensitive as well as the industry expectation that courier deliveries are usually booked when the freight is ready, there are certain carriers for which there is no manifesting step. This is usually set when the carrier is integrated with MachShip. With the Auto Manifest on Consignment Creation button, you can choose to either manifest when the consignment is created (always) or to have the consignment creation and the manifest step. The default will use whatever was set at the carrier integration time.

2. Reconciliation Tolerances

MachShip enables you to reconcile a carrier’s charged invoice to the amount that was quoted through the rates. There are many times where it will cost more to investigate a discrepancy then it is to request a credit from a carrier.  

You can set a series of tolerances that are dollar or percentage values above and below the quoted cost, and MachShip will automatically accept the carriers' cost. Anything outside of these values will appear as unreconciled, and you can then investigate the discrepancy. 

The Reconciliation Tolerance types are: 

• Accept Total Cost ex Tax Tolerance: These are tested against total cost before taxes are applied and the discrepancy is accepted.  

3. Carrier Specific Options

Carrier Specific Options will appear on the Create Carrier Account page once the company and carrier fields have been populated. The specific options are utilised to complete the integration which MachShip has with that transport provider. 

They can include (but are not limited to):

• Consignment Note Prefixes
• API Usernames and Passwords
• Tracking Usernames and Passwords
• Reference Pools

Please click here to see how to obtain and set up the various requirements for each carrier. 

4. Linking of Services

Services are utilized by carriers to differentiate between their product offerings. Services will often differ by price and transit. The linking of services on an account will allow a user to control what services they wish to offer.

Please note that you will require an existing lane rate to be able to generate a route for a consignment even if you have the service linked. 

To link a service to an account select the service from the dropdown (shown below) and select the + icon. 

Alternatively, you can link all services a carrier has by selecting the Add All button.

Should you ever wish to remove a service you can select the X icon as below:

You can remove all the services by selecting the Remove All button. 

Should you have different fuel levies for particular services then you would set that fuel levy against the linked service. If this is left blank, MachShip will default to the fuel levy set against the Carrier Account.

NOTE: If you are importing a spreadsheet of rates you do not need to link the services as this will be completed automatically when the sheet is imported.