What’s New with Logitude Freight Forwarding Software?

May 2024

Do you feel pressured to keep ahead in today’s competitive logistics landscape? Look no further! Logitude World is excited to announce several new improvements designed to help freight forwarders provide great customer service.

This blog will explain the latest features of our advanced freight forwarding software. We’re always working on new technology to give you the tools you need to succeed. Read on to learn how these improvements can make your work easier and keep you on top of things.

New Features

(New) Dashboard 

Unlock Sustainable Business Growth

Imagine a control center for your business operations. That’s basically what an operations management dashboard is! It’s a super helpful tool that gathers information from everywhere in the system and shows it to you in an easy-to-understand way. This real-time information helps you gain insights, monitor performance, and make smart choices. It’s similar to having a steady rhythm in your company to ensure seamless operations. 

The new dashboard provides a wide range of controls over adapted to your specific role:

• Operational Dashboards: Keep an eye on your current operations. 
•  Analytics Dashboards: Use analytics to learn from past data, helping you plan better for the future and make smart decisions. 
•  Effective Dashboard Creation: Easily create dashboards to see your data in a clear and organized way.
• Collect all Your Business Metrics: Combine real-time data from shipments, containers, quotations, opportunities, customers, and invoices. Various Widget Types: Different widget types like columns, bars, pie, doughnut charts, KPIs, and tables.

Digital Portal 

Your Visibility Channel with Your Customers

A seamless digital experience that helps you maintain customer loyalty by providing easy access to shipments, invoices, and quotes in real-time updates. Logitude’s Branded Web Portal reduces your team’s workload and saves you time and effort. With this release, we are excited to announce some new features:

• Viewing Quote in The Digital Portal 

Adding a quotes menu to the digital portal has made it easier for your customers to view all previously shared quotes that are categorized by their stages. The digital portal can only display Quotes that have a prepared Quotation document and a « sent » stage.

• Quote Self-service 

As part of the digital transformation of your business, your customers can now effortlessly accept or decline quotes directly through the Digital Portal and add notes for your quick review and response. Enjoy the flexibility to activate customers individually for a smoother onboarding process. Plus, keep your customers on top of their game by tracking the status of the quotes you send out, allowing you to react and follow up promptly

• Shipment Map 

An enhanced shipment map provides clear insights for your customers to track their supply chain distribution, see shipment counts, and zoom in for precise location details. 

ICS2 – Ocean Shipments – via INTTRA

The third release of the European Union’s customs pre-arrival safety and security system, Import Control System 2 (ICS2), goes live on June 3, 2024. ICS2 is an IT system that collects data on all goods entering the EU before their arrival. Suppose you’re involved in handling, shipping, or transporting goods (including express and postal consignments) to or through the EU, Northern Ireland, Norway, or Switzerland by sea and inland waterways. In that case, you need to be aware of the new ICS2 requirements and take the necessary steps to comply with them. ICS2 Release 3 will introduce a mandatory risk assessment at both the pre-loading and pre-arrival stages, therefore requiring carriers to file a complete Entry Summary Declaration (ENS). So, shippers are responsible for providing the necessary information in shipping instructions to enable carriers to accurately file ENS. Click here to learn more about the ICS2 Release 3.

Shippers and Logistics Service Providers: Click here to review ICS2-related requirements when submitting shipping instructions via the INTTRA by e2open portal.

You can view and fill in all the necessary information with ease because Logitude has integrated all the requirements for sending shipping instructions. You can check the supported carriers in INTTRA using the following link.

INTTRA FROB

You can now use the INTTRA FROB solution to handle the process for shipments passing through the United States without having to unload goods while providing shipping instructions to INTTRA. This feature guarantees seamless freight transit through U.S. ports while enabling you to comply with U.S. Customs laws.

Enhanced Features 

User Experience Improvements 

Unleash New Ways to Work and Boost Your Efficiency!

• Views Improvements

Our new update brings enhanced support for views across entities, making them more intuitive, adaptable, and flexible to save you time and effort. Activate new views for AR Invoices, Activities, and Contacts to enjoy an improved interface, faster performance, and customizable fields as columns and filters. Additionally, the filters area is now streamlined and hidden until needed, allowing you to focus on your data first and refine your search easily with the ‘Add Filters’ option

• Better Appearance of Customers’ Fields 

To simplify managing customer information, key details are listed now in a more intuitive order: The customer first, then the shipper/consignee, and finally the agent (if applicable). This saves you time and makes finding the information you need easier.

• Casual Address Enhancements

Easier address entry! Choose your country first for automatic suggestions on cities, zip codes, and states. Create new cities easily and view and autofill zip codes when selecting a city for faster, more accurate addressing. 

Container Tracking Module

Your Shipment’s Best Friend

In our continuous development of the Container Tracking Module, which connects you with ocean carriers and automates shipment tracking within the Logitude platform, we’ve made it mandatory to include BOL numbers for accurate tracking. This ensures more precise status updates by specifying the exact stage of the container’s journey. 

Additionally, we now support tracking with the following carriers:

• Arkas Container Transport S.A.
• Namsung Shipping Co., Ltd.
• Matson 

Quotes 

Streamlined Pricing and Quoting

Our built-in quote module provides a smoother, faster, and more transparent experience for both you and your customers. In just one step, you can build precise quotes online, share them with your customers right away, and receive online approvals. In this release, we updated the Quotes with the following improvements:

• Quote Multi-Currency 

Set prices for each charge in different currencies based on the cost. This enables you to provide your customers with a clear and accurate breakdown of charges in their currencies, along with the total converted into their preferred currency.

• Via Port Quotes

Now you can manage prices for indirect shipments by adding « Via Port » in the quote level.

• Canceled Quotes Indication 

Canceled quotes are now visible in the recent quotes area, making it easier for you to recognize whether a quote has been canceled or not.

Shipments 

Accurate and Effortless Freight Shipping

• Groupage Packages Rebuilding

When preparing a groupage shipment, you can now rebuild packages if there are changes without removing containers and starting from scratch.

• Update Master Package Warnings

In your master shipments, you will now see warnings at the package level indicating differences between packages in the master and connected houses.

• Gross Weight No Longer Mandatory

The weight of containers is no longer required when creating new containers for your shipments.

• Package Quantity and Type

You now have ‘Package Quantity and Type’ showing the total quantity for each container type. This enhancement is reflected across various views.

BI Reports 

Transforming Data into Action

The new improvements to the BI Reports Module will enhance your reporting, decision-making, and business analysis by providing easier access to valuable data from the Logitude Data Warehouse (DW). 

• BI Report with Shipment Links to Digital Portal

When preparing shipment reports for your customers, you now can allow them to view detailed information about each shipment directly through Shipment View in a digital portal. So you will not need to resend the documents /invoice/quote. They can easily view and download the documents.

• Standard BI Report to Calculate Detention and Demurrage – Import

We’ve included BI reports in our standard reports to help you avoid detention and demurrage charges. You can also use these reports to calculate the detention days you should charge. 

• Custom Calculated Columns & Filters

Now you can create custom-calculated fields, filter reports based on these fields, and even use them to make additional calculated fields. Let’s say you calculate the difference between two values, you can then filter the report to show only data points where this difference falls within a certain range.

• Search BI folders and Reports 

Save time searching for BI reports. Now you can find them all directly in the search field. You can find the exact report you need without having to remember its folder location.

• Change Fields Label

Customize your reports’ column labels, and change field labels to suit your business needs.

• Field Reference Operators

BI reports are easier to filter now with the field reference operators. They allow you to compare the filtered field to another one in your data. You can use operators such as « Equals/Does Not Equal [Field] » for text and lookup fields and « Greater Than [Field] » for dates and numbers. This feature will be available two weeks after the release.

Automation Module

Reducing Your Manual Workload

• Automation Library

We’ve created a set of ready-made automations to simplify setting up automatic actions for your entities. You can find them by going to Automations in your environment and then Add from Template.

• Handler as Recipient 

You can now send automatic emails to your quote handler by choosing them as a recipient.

Accounting

Organizing Your Accounting Data

• e-Invoicing in Portugal

Logitude has improved the Accounts Receivable (A/R) invoicing process to meet Portugal’s e-Invoicing standards and integrate smoothly with the local accounting system.

Here’s what the update includes:

•       Invoice Number: Logitude Invoice Number will now show the ERP-certified Invoice number.
•       PDF Invoices: Original PDF invoices issued from the ERP system, are now automatically included in Logitude.

These updates make sure invoices in Logitude will be the Actual invoices the customer received and are compatible with the Portugal requirements.

• e-Invoicing in Israel

To meet the Israeli government’s requirements, we’ve added the ‘e-Invoice Number’ to AR/AP invoices for capturing the Allocation Number created via the Tax Authority’s platform. This field is included in the Hashavshevet and Rivheet interfaces and is supported in invoice printing.

• Bank Fees in A/R Payment

To support the full transaction, we’ve added « Bank Fees » and « Bank Fees Currency » to the AR Payment to ensure accurate recording of all expenses associated with the payments and collect bank fees for transactions. These fields are also included in the A/R Payment XML file.

• Improved Exchange Rate Flexibility for AR/AP Invoices

AR/AP invoices allow you to manage exchange rates by operational or invoice date (manual adjustments via the ‘Value date’ field). This offers more flexibility for international transactions. 

• VAT Payable Report

For accurate compliance and financial VAT reporting, the VAT payable report summarizes a business’s VAT owed for a period. It only includes paid invoices, offering a detailed breakdown of VAT amounts alongside payment and invoice details.

Customer Service New Roles

We’ve added new roles to streamline the management of your customer service team:

• Customer Service Handlers. 
• Customer Service Team Manager. 

User Role Control: Shipper/Consignee Creation

Now, you have control over creating shipper/consignee options based on user roles. This allows you to grant or restrict this option to specific employees as needed. 

SaaS Solution: Standardize Master Data 

• Adding France and Mexico Cities

To make getting all cities related to France and Mexico easier, we’ve introduced a new option to add all cities from our library instantly. Simply choose the country and add all the missing cities in one go!

• Newly Added Airlines

You can now register for e-AWB with the new airlines we have added to the general library, which include the following: 

•       World2Fly Portugal
•       MY Freighter
•       World2Fly
•       Challenge Air Cargo

Thank you for being a part of our journey towards enhanced productivity! We are here to support you every step of the way. Reach out to our dedicated support team at support@logitudeworld.zendesk.com

For Sales, please contact: info@logitudeworld.com

Or visit our FAQ page for more information.