10 Benefits of Transloading Software for Your Logistics Business in 2024

Is transloading often a logistical nightmare? 

Coordinating your transload shipping processes brings many variables into the picture.

You need to coordinate yard assets, handle inventory, and follow up with customers, which is very challenging with poor logistics visibility. 

In fact, a Statista survey revealed that 21% of businesses have poor visibility over their logistics. This makes it the biggest challenge for supply chain leaders.

However, logistics management doesn’t always have to be complicated, more so if you take advantage of the right solutions. These can help you reap the benefits of transloading software like reduced paperwork and better logistics visibility.  

With a great platform, you can centralize transloading logistics and automate routine logistical work to increase focus on core business functions and drive productivity. 

In this article, I’ll take you through the benefits of a transloading software you need to know about in 2024 in order to improve efficiency and productivity. 

Let’s get started. 

1. Better cash flow management

Does your business still rely on paper invoices?

While they may get the job done, they are by no means effective. You’ll spend a lot of time filing paperwork, chasing down approvals, and perhaps even physically delivering the invoices to clients. 

So besides increasing incidents of late payments, traditional invoicing strategies also leave room for invoice errors that can also lead to lost revenue. 

In fact, a study by Xero revealed that 87% of businesses are affected by late payments, with many getting paid more than sixty days after their due dates. These businesses further added that this situation has made it very difficult to grow. 

This is quite understandable given that late payments constrict cash flow, hindering your business’s ability to take on new orders and fund expansion. 

However, you can improve your transmodal or intermodal shipping business’ cash flow with a great transloading software. 

This is because you get electronic invoicing capabilities, which allow you to process, approve, and update an invoice much faster. In addition, you can instantly deliver it to clients with just a few mouse clicks, thereby greatly shortening invoice cycle times.

Furthermore, you can also schedule reminders for your e-invoices. This will periodically  prompt customers about pending invoices to accelerate your payment cycles

But that’s not all you stand to gain. 

On top of that, you can create customizable e-invoice templates to standardize invoicing processes for your transloading facility. With this type of invoice also being easier to track, you’ll also reduce cases of duplicate invoices and other costly errors. 

2. Lower risk of inventory fraud

Inventory fraud is a huge threat to your logistics business. 

It occurs in many forms, with the most common being inventory shrinkage. This happens when disgruntled employees steal units of goods during unloading processes, and alter shipping documents to conceal the crime. 

If you rely on manual and paper-based processes to manage your inventory, it can be challenging to track fraud, which only undermines your profit margins.

In 2022, a TransUnion study revealed a 780% increase in fraud in the shipping industry, part of which entails inventory fraud during various points of the shipping process. This proves the dire need for a smart accountability and inventory management system. 

Otherwise, inventory fraud will continue flying under the radar, eating at your business until it’s too late to salvage the situation. 

So how does a transloading software tackle fraud? 

When you choose the right transloading software, you’ll be able to digitize your inventory processes and improve accountability. 

With electronic inventory forms that are less vulnerable to tampering, you get detailed information about inventory activities and transactions. So in case of suspicion, you can easily track down the goods in question plus the employee responsible. 

You also get inventory audit capabilities that let you cross-check physical goods against your accounting records to identify discrepancies in terms of location or quantities. 

This ability to clamp down on inventory fraud is easily one of the top benefits of transloading software, making it a valuable ally to help protect not only your business’s bottom line but also its reputation as well. 

3. Improved customer experiences

Want to win over and retain more customers? 

Many clients today want to be able to track shipments and monitor your transloading operations in real time. If you can’t make this happen, they start to lose confidence in your services and begin re-evaluating their options. 

When you fail to meet your customer’s needs and expectations, chances are high that you won’t get repeat business or even referrals from them. 

A study by Emplifi revealed that nearly 86% of customers will ditch you for the competition if you don’t fully cater to their needs. In the shipping world, these needs largely revolve around giving your clients ready access to key information. 

A transload management system can help you do that primarily via customer portals that keep clients on top of proceedings. 

Clients can log into the system, view the status of the tasks, and even access important shipping details and documents remotely. With information readily available at their pleasure, this helps to make your transloading processes more transparent. 

If you need to improve customer experiences and attract new prospects for your business, we may be of assistance to your business. 

Click here to access our premium support services, which also cover marketing assistance to help you attract new business for your transload facility. 

On top of that, we can help you expand and optimize your operations to match growing needs as your customer base scales. We’ll also help you gain the capacity to take on more orders and handle new types of commodities. 

4. Higher cargo acceptance rates 

Want to cut down on cases of cargo rejection? 

There are a lot of reasons why consignees can reject cargo, and some of those break down to errors that can occur during your transloading operations. 

For example, if your staff handle dangerous or fragile goods inappropriately, this can lead to cargo contamination and damage, which raises the risk of rejection. 

A study by TT Club revealed that 65% of cargo damages are due to poor packaging, and handling. They came to this conclusion after scrutinizing their insurance claims, most of which were filed in response to consignees rejecting shipments. 

In addition to cargo damage, your recipient may also reject the shipment because of concealed shortages that are difficult to track manually. 

However, you get important transloading software features to help lower the risk of cargo contamination and damage with a great solution.

It does so by tracking crucial freight information so your loaders can stack cargo accordingly depending on the fragility of its contents. 

Your staff can also harness the benefits of transloading software because it lets you upload safety manuals and instructions into a cloud-based platform to enforce proper goods handling and safety practices 

In addition, such a tool can also help you reduce concealed shortages.

This is largely because of the inventory management and audit features, which enable you to keep track of units more effectively and in real time. As a result, you can easily spot the difference between quantities of inbound and outbound cargo. 

5. Lower driver detention

Driver detention is a growing problem in shipping. 

It typically sets in when there’s a breakdown in communication between your transloading warehouse staff, drivers, and transload operations. Additionally, it may also be a result of dock scheduling conflicts that cause the inefficient distribution of trucks. 

When you can’t process trucks faster enough, driver dwell times increase, which in turn also raises driver detention costs for your business.  

In fact, 72% of drivers wait more than three hours for loading processes, according to an OOIDA survey. Given that the minimum free detention time is typically two hours, anything more than that is unideal. 

With detention pay able to hit 100 dollars per hour, the figure becomes eye-watering if you multiply this by the number of trucks you keep waiting. 

This is why you need the best transload management systems to help streamline yard operations and clear your backlog quickly. 

So how can such a tool minimize dwell times? 

First, it enables you to track inbound shipments in real-time, thereby giving you the information necessary to avoid scheduling conflicts and assign staff and docks more evenly to massively reduce your transloading warehouse’s wait times. 

It can even further streamline your check-in and check-out processes by digitizing paper operations to reduce the time you spend filing and processing paperwork

Moreover, it helps you group inventory according to dispatch times and other criteria.

This enables your business to minimize the time spent consolidating freight while it facilitates just-in-time cross-docking to further reduce loading delays. 

6. Huge paper-related savings 

How much paper does your business use? 

Often an overlooked money pit, paper attracts so many hidden costs for your transloading facility. That’s in addition to hindering accessibility to important documents like safety sheets, manuals, and bills of lading. 

From storing and filing to printing and equipment costs, the cumulative expenses of a paper-based workflow can take a huge financial toll on your business. 

Alarmingly, approximately 66% of US businesses are spending $1,000 every month on document printing as per a Xerox study. The statistics get even more damning if we factor in other costs like paper-related labor and storage, among others.  

But it’s not just about the direct expenses, there’s also the fact that it causes massive losses with process inefficiencies that cost you valuable work hours. 

If you’re to compete with the best transload service companies, you need to transition to a paperless and superior workflow. 

This will enable you to accelerate information retrieval, process transload orders faster, and improve customer response times for your transload facility. When that happens, you gain a competitive advantage over your alternatives. 

With a great solution, you can reap the many benefits of transloading software, including the ability to create electronic documents like inventory forms, bills of landings, and others and store them in the cloud. 

This minimizes the need for paper, thereby reducing your paper purchase, sorting, filing, and document storage needs. 

Moreover, you can also capture electronic signatures to further cut out other paper-related expenses such as printing and courier delivery charges. 

7. Improved employee productivity

There are many threats to employee productivity. 

From manual processes and poor communication to inefficient task management and lack of timely access to information, your transload facility is rife with all sorts of obstacles that can negatively affect the output of your staff.  

When your business doesn’t hit its stride in terms of productivity, this can lead to low morale, less engaged workers, and reduced profitability. 

A study by FourKites revealed that 41% of yards experience productivity struggles, which are primarily driven by manual processes. This makes them the biggest threat to productivity for your transload facility & emphasizes the need for automation. 

That said, even if your employee productivity levels are alright, it’s hard to pass up the opportunity to squeeze even more value out of your workforce.

This is another reason why I recommend transloading software as it can turbocharge workplace productivity.

But how does it help exactly? 

For one, you get important task management features that enable you to allocate tasks strategically. You can assign specific tasks to workers with the right expertise and experience to ensure they get done faster and more efficiently. 

Moreover, your transloading shipping business also gets vital dashboards and analytics that enable you to gauge worker performance. This is one of the biggest benefits of transloading software because it can help you iron out productivity bottlenecks. 

It further lets you automate routine work like sending proof of delivery emails, tracking rail cars, and more to free up yard workers for higher-value work. 

8. Streamlined team collaboration 

Can you say teamwork is at its best at your facility? 

The success of your business hinges on how well everyone works. Starting right at the top with facility managers all the way to freight conductors and dock workers, there needs to be proper coordination all through. 

When teamwork fails, your business stands to lose a lot, including productivity and efficiency, both of which negatively impact your bottom line.  

A survey by Corel showed that 70% of employees struggle to collaborate, thereby indicating a dire collaboration crisis for modern businesses. In fact, many of them reported wasting up to six work hours each week because of it. 

When quizzed further about the root cause, it’s not surprising that they blamed poor technologies and lackluster company leadership. 

This is why I recommend that you consider the best transloading software, which have essential capabilities to help enhance collaboration. 

With a great solution such as our very own transloads.co solution, you can reap important benefits of transloading software with the power of the cloud.

Our cloud-based platform gives your field crew remote access to information and tasks and seamlessly connects them with your back office. Consequently, you can coordinate workers more efficiently and remotely. 

It also streamlines communication, enabling dock workers and transload operators to seek clarification with ease. 

To ensure that workplace collaboration doesn’t turn into a liability, our platform gives you a manager portal and lets you set access and role-based permissions. This helps keep confidential documents and information safe while reducing insider risks.  

9. Better yard space utilization

Want to get the most out of your yard? 

I’m certain you’ll agree that yard space is like gold for your transload facility, and you can’t afford to waste any of it. It affects your ability to take on orders and is without a doubt one of your most important resources. 

Poor yard visibility can lead to the inefficient use of space, no matter whether big or small, leading to yard congestion for your transload facility. 

For nearly 91% of transloading businesses, optimal space utilization is the biggest concern according to a recent study by AutoStore. This is quite understandable given the rising costs of property rent. 

In addition, yard congestion disrupts the flow of goods to hold up your operations, delay services, and increase customer dissatisfaction. 

But you can tackle these challenges with a great transloading solution. 

For example, our software transloads gives you a bird’s eye view of your yard, allowing you to map out the locations of trucks, rail cars, containers, trailers, transloading equipment, and other assets in real-time.

In addition, you can also capture pending outbound and inbound shipments, with this data helping you to improve transloading ROI by intuitively routing traffic in your yard, and allocating space more strategically.

This ultimately helps you to avoid congestion even during peak periods when your yard can be a maze of trucks and trailers, thereby maximizing space utilization.   

Furthermore, it can help you streamline inventory processes and the movement of goods from warehouses to docks and vice versa to further ease congestion. 

10. Improved regulatory compliance

Your business is subject to various regulatory rules.

Depending on where you operate exactly, you may face compliance requirements set by the US EPA regarding control of your operation’s impact on the environment. Additionally, there are also the OSHA rules to watch out for concerning worker safety.

Overall, navigating the minefield of compliance is challenging with poor yard visibility, thereby increasing the risk of fines and even civil penalties. 

A study by Vector revealed that 71% of businesses face yard visibility challenges, which makes it hard to monitor operations. As a result, compliance risks easily go unnoticed, and this also creates an increased risk of workplace injuries. 

This proves the need for end-to-end traceability for various transloading operations if you’re to avoid compliance violations and business disruptions.  

So how can a transloading platform improve compliance? 

Well, one of the most important benefits of transloading software is that it can help you improve visibility into yard operations. 

It gives you real-time data regarding the location of yard assets and even the activities of transload operators and dock workers. This enables you to ensure that field crew are following safety protocols set by the OSHA act and government agencies as well. 

What’s more, this can also improve transloading ROI by enabling you to solve process inefficiencies and reduce the use of transloading equipment to lower emissions. 

It can also help you monitor and reduce cases of product spillage like oil to improve compliance with regulations like the Spill Control Prevention and Countermeasure rule.

Conclusion

A transload yard is full of disasters waiting to happen. 

From dangling cranes to trucks queuing up for loading, danger lurks everywhere. 

With occupational accidents like truck collisions and worker injuries, your business loses productivity and might be cited for OSHA violations.  

A study by ILO revealed that 395 million workers are injured in the line of duty every year. This emphasizes the need to leverage technology to improve transloading safety

A great platform can help you track yard assets in real time, allowing you to prevent and respond to dangerous situations quickly. In particular, I recommend transloads for its all-in-one transload management features. 

Click here to start your free transloads.co trial to improve the efficiency of your facility and reap other top benefits of transloading software for your business. 

With our platform, you’ll also improve employee productivity and streamline cash flow management to help grow your transloading business.