In the age of skyrocketing fuel costs and constant demand, feature-rich TMS software helps you excel. With our help, you’ll get to skip tedious documentation and wade right into the TMS requirements your business needs to succeed.

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What This Guide Covers:

• Key TMS Requirements
  • Claims Management
  • Compliance and Governance
  • Dock Scheduling and Yard Management
  • Freight Rating and Multimodal Transport
  • Mobile Access
  • Reporting and Dashboards
  • Transportation Order Management
  • Transportation Sourcing and Procurement
  • Cargo Tracking
• Key Functionalities
• Considerations
• Next Steps

Key TMS Requirements

To help you get started, we’ve created a list of TMS requirements you should add to your software checklist.

1. Claims Management

Omnichannel revenue is one of the reasons why many companies still utilize brick-and-mortar storefronts in a world where online retailers like Amazon reign supreme. But wherever there’s an opportunity for profit, there’s also the possibility of failure. This pitfall is why TMS providers need a centralized method of dealing with claims and disputes.

Claims management covers all cargo-related claims, such as damages and lost goods. Integrating your financial data is an effective way to manage your claims and disputes. This strategy allows you to instantly audit agreed-upon rates and see the associated billing records.

The integrated freight claims feature optimizes document management and helps you identify delays and specific causes behind freight slowdowns, damages and losses. Access to delivery ETAs, route analyses, planning and fleet tracking capabilities can tackle claims to a significant extent.

If you are liable for damage, you’ll want complete visibility of potential revenue losses. Additionally, some TMS tools offer claims reporting and analytics. Reporting gives you a quick means of sharing important data, and analysis can help you understand trends.

All-round Claims Management with MercuryGate. Source

• Carrier Portal
• Create Claim Records and Carrier Remittances
• Delivery ETAs
• Route Analysis
• Route Planning
• Manage Suppliers or Vendors
• Select Delivery Time Slots
• Track Claims, Consignments and Packages
• Track and Monitor Fleet

2. Compliance and Governance

Complexities and diverse geographical distributions of carriers, suppliers, teams and partners make implementing compliance and governance challenging. Compliance management can eliminate issues like order fulfillment delays, damaged or perished freight, customer blowbacks, financial repercussions and hefty fines.

TMS solutions can automate end-to-end compliance operations. These systems use machine learning and dynamic logic based on business-defined rules. Structured workflow configurations standardize regulations across partners, stakeholders and internal teams.

They also keep your CSA (Compliance, Safety and Accountability) scores low and prevent FMCSA from exercising strict scrutiny over your business. Using this TMS requirement offers market-rate index, native carrier compliance management, and ELD (electronic logging devices) or HOS compliance.

Set Compliance Rules with MercuryGate. Source

• Carrier Compliance
• Driver Compliance
• ELD or HOS Compliance
• National Motor Freight Classification Compliance
• Trade Compliance

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3. Dock Scheduling and Yard Management

Managing a dock facility and yard can be overwhelming, with a multitude of daily inbound and outbound shipments to track. This feature is helpful for several facilities such as airlines cross docks, factories, warehouses, and fulfillment and distribution centers.

It lets you review, approve or reject dock bookings, allocate docks and monitor shipment status in real time.

You should invest in a system that offers this TMS requirement to improve truck security and limit spotter movement around your yards.

Some standard features you should look for are:

• Online appointment scheduling
• Access to historical data
• Real-time analytics
• Trailer movement tracking
• Notifications and alerts

Yard Management Processes and Challenges. Source

• Track Trailer Movements Using Trail Audits
• Record Dock Check-Ins and Outs
• Milestone Notifications
• Schedule Online Appointments
• Recurring Appointments

4. Freight Rating and Multimodal Transport

The basic idea behind using freight rating capabilities is to have the ability to compare freight, shipping and budget needs with carrier pricing and offerings. Factors that affect freight rates include cargo form and weight, transportation mode and the distance to destination. It lets shippers and 3PLs explore and select the best carrier rates, considering the above mentioned factors and service offerings.

Freight rating optimizes headhaul and backhaul elements within a shipper network. It provides shippers with analytics that come in handy while negotiating lane-by-lane rates.

Multimodal shipment involves a level of detail not seen in many other industries. Between the actual logistics of managing several transportation modes and the legalities of subcarriers, it can be helpful to prioritize this feature in your TMS requirements.

If you plan to implement multimodal shipments, ensure your TMS can manage all the modes you utilize. This functionality should include road, rail, ocean and air.

Your platform should handle the logistics of cross-border freight and domestic considerations while letting you compare carriers and multimodal rates. Shortlist a vendor that handles cross-docking, which minimizes storage time and warehousing costs, including warehouse management expenses.

• Carrier Performance Scorecards
• Compare Carrier Rates
• Carrier Repository
• Freight Audit Payments (FAP)
• Multimodal Rate Evaluation
• Ocean, Rail, Air and Truck Freight
• Receive Spot Quotes from Carriers

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5. Mobile Access

Mobility is usually a “nice-to-have” feature in other realms of software, but when your entire industry is on the go, it’s necessary. Some vendors offer native Android and iOS applications, while others rely on mobile websites. While you can access some systems from any device with internet access, others are OS-specific.

TMS applications commonly run on iOS or Android, but some systems can also run on Blackberry and Windows Mobile. You should also consider the application’s user interface on mobile devices. While the design isn’t an essential part of transportation management system requirements (because it doesn’t affect how the software works), it affects the ease of use and adoption rates within your company.

Features like e-signature, document management, offline access and the ease of managing, sharing and reviewing information from anywhere make mobility essential. If you expect resistance during implementation, a user-friendly interface is something to prioritize on your TMS requirements checklist.

Run TMS apps on Mobile Devices. Source

• Capture e-Signatures
• Document Management
• In-app Messaging for Internal Communications
• Native Android App
• Native iOS App
• Offline Access

6. Reporting and Dashboards

Access to reporting on customized dashboards offers a detailed representation of company KPIs and performance. Data from interactive reports in pie charts, bar diagrams and comparison tables give you an at-a-glance view of the business.

In addition to these traditional reporting tools, transportation vendors provide specialized maps to visualize shipping patterns. Custom dashboards and reporting enable managers and TMS administrators to review historical fleet data. This inclusion makes them valuable additions to your TMS requirements checklist.

Some essential reporting capabilities that must be a part of a TMS system are freight data analysis, freight shipment summary, volume analysis, performance analysis and financial analysis.

Analyzing these aspects should help you get a deeper understanding of management strategies and their effect while identifying potential bottlenecks to improve operations before they become major challenges

Kuebix’s DashboardInsert caption text here.

• Custom Reports and Dashboards
• Predefined Dashboards and Reports
• Export Reports
• Financial and Performance Analysis Reports
• Volume Analysis Report

7. Transportation Order Management

Automated transportation order management does all the tedious work from order inception, processing, packaging and shipment tendering to final delivery. The live data-sharing feature helps connect everyone with order details and keeps parties in the loop.

Many vendors allow you to orchestrate tasks and workflows for various operations, a significant feature in TMS requirements. For instance, you can set an orchestration process to share transportation planning requests once the fulfillment system receives an order. It helps you enter transportation orders with necessary information like format, weight, shipment date and more.

You can also schedule routes and shipment modes in advance or let the software automatically generate them for you. Once you’ve set the transportation, drivers can access all the relevant information and deliver accordingly.

Manage Multiple Orders from a Single Platform. Source

• Create Transport Orders
• Export Shipment Data to CSV Format
• Load Planning
• Order Overview Dashboard, List and Pickup Calendar View
• Client Order Tracking
• Planning Board for Order Management
• View Shipment Status by Vendors

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8. Transportation Sourcing and Procurement

While securing the lowest charging carriers, companies often end up with the wrong partner, poor services, dispute claims, late payments and a decline in corporate credibility.

All these concerns make it essential to have transportation sourcing and procurement as a primary TMS requirement.

TMS solutions let you automate carrier contract sourcing. You can receive bids from multiple providers and evaluate responses with the help of benchmark standards and data. Effective scenario management helps improve contract award combinations.

These are the essential questions on the subject:

• What’s the best strategy to procure transportation services for different modes and locations?
• What’s the right number of carriers that can help optimize our freight operations and network?
• Which carriers are the most reliable and dedicated within your network?

• Receive Data from Service Providers to Execute Bids
• Configure Business Rules and Constraints for Awarding
• Create Contracts and Carrier Response Templates
• Create Manual Bids
• Notify Service Providers of Award
• ‘What if’ Scenarios for Bid Analysis

9. Cargo Tracking

Usually, a TMS is one of many parts of a supply chain ecosystem. You should choose software that connects with other internal and external systems to run seamlessly.

Here’s a detailed overview of how software integrations help businesses function.

• Freight Marketplaces: If you’re a business operator or a 3PL, you may need to connect the solution with a separate freight marketplace and load board to utilize all features through a single interface.
• 3PL Systems and External Carriers: In-built integration allows shippers to communicate with their business partners and exchange transformation details from any location.

  Carriers can receive load data, including rates, pickup and delivery address, dimensions, commodity weight and type. Seamless integration also allows shippers to track their shipments and exchange all necessary documentation in real time.

• Business Intelligence: Integrating your BI tool with the TMS system keeps data flows smooth and consistent. This TMS requirement lets you capture a holistic performance analysis and supports employee performance management needs.
• Accounting and Settlements System: If you use standalone software to handle your accounting and settlement operations, you should connect with the TMS tool. This integration ensures that claims management, billing, invoicing and settlements are accurate across the board.
• Warehouse Management: Using a WMS tool in your business that seamlessly connects with TMS software enables you to coordinate all shipping operations with warehousing.

  With WMS integrations, you’ll be able to exchange all shipment-related information and customer details while setting schedules for loading and unloading deliveries.

• ERP: Enterprise resource planning solutions act as a centralized system for several processes like marketing, finance, sales, transportation and manufacturing. Select a TMS tool that integrates with an existing ERP platform to ensure an effortless exchange of order information.

  Centralized and organized transportation analytics lets you plan and forecast your transportation and TMS requirements well in advance.

The Ideal TMS integrates with ERP, CRM, WMS and more. Source

• Accounting Integration
• CRM Integration
• E-Commerce Integration
• ERP System Integration
• Freight Broker Integration
• Supply Chain Integration
• WMS Integration

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Key Functionalities

Check out these functional components you should look for in a transportation management system:

• Transportation Control Tower
• Freight Optimization
• Carrier Management
• Route and Load Optimization
• Procurement Management
• Billing and Invoice
• Inventory and Asset Control Management
• Freight Audit
• Integrations
• User Interface and Ease of Use
• Supply Chain Communication
• Data Visibility, Reporting and Analytics
• Risk Management

The right transport management solution should facilitate daily operations, help you make informed decisions and reduce expenses. The above features can help all businesses grow, with slight variation based on type and niche.

Considerations

As tempting as it may be to skip all the transportation management system documentation and dive into buying, you need a solid foundation first. By asking yourself, your team members and your stakeholders some of these questions, you’ll go into the hunt for your perfect TMS system prepared:

How large is your business?

Nothing wastes time and resources like a failed system implementation. Often, businesses will look at the most expensive system and assume that the price makes it the best.

Adopting an unnecessarily complex system will slow down your processes, confuse team members, damage customer relationships and cost you hefty replacement charges. Instead of looking for the most decimal places, look at your business and go for vendors that serve similarly sized companies.

Smaller businesses may need more human resources to support implementing systems with certain levels of complexity. Ensure enough people are willing to adopt new TMS requirements and integrate a new system.

Keep in mind — that there is no one-size-fits-all approach when choosing a TMS solution.

Depending on the deployment strategy, you may also need an in-house IT team to keep your systems running. Today, more companies prefer cloud-based deployment over on-premise. Read more about SaaS or cloud-based deployment in detail.

What modes of transportation do you rely on?

This aspect may seem like an obvious thing to consider, but only some solutions handle every transportation modality. You’ll want to ensure that your system provides all the process support you need to distribute and deliver successfully.

Some may offer support for multimodal transportation, but you’ll want to ensure that they include the features you’ve come to rely on to function properly.

What does the new system need to accomplish?

Purchasing a system simply to have one won’t get you anywhere. Laying out a concrete list of pain points that a transportation management system addresses can point you in the right direction. If you’re looking for areas a new system can improve, here are some things a TMS can do for your business:

• Increase Visibility: If you’re having trouble identifying what ails your transportation processes, robust analytical and reporting tools can help root them out. Automated business intelligence features discover, analyze and display critical business data to aid management in making educated decisions.
• Improve Organization and Customer Relations: If you’re making late deliveries, wasting valuable time on mismatched schedules or partnering with unreliable drivers, it’s time to pick up a TMS. These systems can automate scheduling with defined parameters, track deliveries in real time and help you assign the best driver for the job.
• Cut Costs Across the Board: You don’t need to pore over 200 pages of transportation management system documentation to see how they can save you money.

  A successful system can maximize shipment consolidation and automate routing for the best fuel values while supporting freight auditing. Tracking features ensure that you see the entire journey of a product and can give your customers concrete delivery updates.

• Strengthen Financial Practices: Distributors and logistics professionals deal with numerous daily transactions. A successful TMS tool streamlines and simplifies these tedious tasks while improving accounting accuracy. Thus, users can shrink their auditing time to seconds.

  These systems can automatically detect inconsistencies between invoices and rates while guiding the user through rectifying the situation.

• Boost Collaboration and Networking: Any TMS worth its salt will provide you with communication tools and access to networks of supplies, carriers and more.

  If you’re looking to attract new business partners and improve overall communication between your teams, look for a TMS that supports these processes.

When you settle on a system, you’ll want to guarantee that you’re paying for the functionality that you actually need.

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Next Steps

Now that you’re familiar with what transportation management solutions can provide, it’s time to make your list of TMS requirements for software selection. This way, you can choose the perfect TMS tool for your business. We recommend using our free requirements template for additional guidance.

You can customize it to include features relevant to your business and set reminders to receive stakeholder feedback. Finally, start comparing systems find the one best suited to your needs.

What transportation management system requirements do you use? Did we miss anything on our TMS software checklist? We’d love to know all your thoughts on the topic, so leave a comment below!