AI for insights and analytics
A customer reported as the year's growth story rose 32 percent on rate while its TEU fell and its gross profit per container dropped a quarter. AI analytics reads the shipment, invoice and operations files, and answers the account manager's question: where is profit per shipment falling, and which lanes are we losing.
These are the questions forwarders ask. Each one maps to a measure our tools compute from your files. The AI model chooses the measure and explains the result; the arithmetic is done by our code, and every total is checked.
| The question | The measure behind it | What comes back |
|---|---|---|
| Where is gross profit per shipment falling? | Gross profit per shipment | Gross profit per shipment and per TEU by customer, lane and mode, against the prior period. |
| How much of each customer's trade lane do we carry? | Trade lane share per customer | Our shipments over the customer's known volume on the lane, with the gap. |
| What are detention and demurrage costing us, and what did we recover? | Detention and demurrage | Charges incurred by customer against charges recharged, with the unrecovered balance. |
| How reliable are our transit times? | Transit time reliability | Shipments within the promised window by lane and carrier, with the misses and their causes. |
| How long from booking to invoice? | Booking to invoice cycle | Median days by office and customer, with the outliers. |
| Which customer lanes have gone dormant? | Dormant customer lanes | Customer and lane pairs past their own shipment gap, by prior gross profit. |
Every figure below was computed by a tool from the rows and checked before it was shown. The lines sum; the percentages match; each line opens to the rows that make it.
How much gross profit have we lost to falling profit per TEU?
Gross profit is down $820k year on year on customers whose volume held or fell while their revenue rose, across 3 trade lanes. Asia to Europe accounts for $420k, 51% of it.
| Asia to Europe | $420k | 51% of the total |
| Transatlantic | $260k | 32% of the total |
| Intra-Asia | $140k | 17% of the total |
| The 3 lines sum to | $820k | 0 unexplained |
Which Asia to Europe customers?
3 customers account for $410k of the $420k lost on Asia to Europe, 98% of it. At the largest, gross profit per TEU fell from 210 to 155 dollars and 32,000 dollars of detention was absorbed.
| Westgate Imports | $190k | revenue up 32%; TEU down 6%; GP per TEU 210 to 155 |
| Delta Apparel Group | $140k | detention 41k incurred, 9k recharged |
| Orion Electronics | $80k | invoices 19 days after delivery |
| These 3 are | $410k | 98% of Asia to Europe |
What does the account team change?
Recharge detention under the contract, invoice on delivery, and reprice the lane on profit per TEU rather than revenue. The account manager takes the split to Westgate; operations fixes the invoice lag.
| Account manager, Westgate | Reprice Asia to Europe on GP per TEU at the review | This month |
| Operations lead | Recharge open detention and cut invoice lag to six days | This month |
| Commercial director | Report GP per TEU beside revenue by customer | Monthly |
Each measure has one formula, one source and one meaning. They are computed per account manager and trade lane and in total, and every one carries an identity that must hold before it is shown.
| Measure | Formula | From | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trade lane share per customer | Volume moved on the lane ÷ customer's estimated volume on the lane, by mode | Shipment file; customer volumes by source grade | Lanes the customer ships with someone else |
| Volume by mode | TEU for ocean; chargeable weight for air; shipments for road; each against the same period last year | Shipment file | What the customer did, without rate distortion |
| Transit time reliability | Shipments arriving within quoted transit plus tolerance ÷ shipments, per customer lane | Milestone data; quotes | The promise against the milestones |
| Customs hold rate and cause | Entries held ÷ entries, against the lane norm; cause by correction source | Customs entry file | Holds caused by the customer's own documents |
| Detention and demurrage | Charges incurred, recharged and absorbed, per customer | Charges file; invoices | Margin leaking through free time overruns |
| Booking to invoice cycle | Median days from delivery to invoice, by customer and office | Shipment file; ledger | Revenue waiting on paperwork |
| Gross profit per shipment | (Revenue − direct costs) ÷ shipments, by customer, lane and mode | Job costing; ledger | Customers whose volume earns little |
| Concentration by gross profit | Top ten customers' share of gross profit; largest customer | Ledger | Dependence, on the figure that matters |
| Quote conversion by lane | Quotes won ÷ quotes decided, by count and value, by lane | Quote log; shipment file | Lanes where pricing or service loses |
| Dormant customer lanes | Customer lanes with no shipment in k × their own interval, by prior gross profit | Shipment file | Business that moved to another forwarder |
Each measure is worked through, with the export it comes from and what to drop, in Commercial KPIs for freight forwarders and shipping lines.
From your question and the measures declared for shipping and logistics, the model picks the one that answers it, and the period and comparison the question implies.
Deterministic code reads the rows, computes the measure, and checks the identities below. The same question on the same data gives the same answer, every time.
The AI model writes the sentence around the result, naming the account manager or account behind it. It states no figure that is not in the result, and every figure links to its rows.
| Modes | Mode totals are never added; each ties to its own shipment count |
| Customs | Entries = cleared without hold + held; every hold has a reason code |
| Charges | Detention and demurrage incurred = recharged + absorbed + disputed |
| Gross profit | Job revenue − job cost sums to the ledger |
The exports forwarders already produce. Column names are mapped once and the mapping is reused. A file is the way in; scheduled delivery and connections to your systems come with the plan, and every source is listed here.
An answer is a list with an owner and a cadence, or it is a chart nobody works.
| Measures | Owner | Cadence |
|---|---|---|
| Transit reliability; customs holds; dormant lanes | Account managers; operations leads | Weekly to monthly |
| Detention and demurrage; booking to invoice | Operations and finance, by office | Monthly |
| Gross profit per shipment; quote conversion | Commercial director | Monthly |
| Trade lane share; concentration | Managing director | Quarterly |
Because ocean rates move. A customer whose revenue rose a third on falling volume and falling profit per container is a rate story, not a growth story, and only profit per TEU says so. The tool computes revenue, volume and gross profit per unit side by side, so the account manager sees all three.
Yes, when the detention and demurrage file carries both. Charges incurred by customer are set against charges recharged, and the unrecovered balance is listed by customer and container. Whether the contract allows the recharge is the account manager's call; the figure is on the page.
Shipments with revenue, cost, mode, lane and units, the invoice file with dates, the detention and demurrage file, and transit milestones where you have them. Customer volume on a lane, where known, adds lane share. Every file is an export the TMS already produces.
Every measure is computed per office and in total, and money is held in the currency of the file with a rate you set for display. A customer served from two offices is one customer for share and concentration and two rows in the office view.
Lane share · Margin per load · Chargeable weight · Dormant account · Concentration · On-time delivery
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Bring a few thousand rows. The data map opens next, every column mapped once, and the first question is answered in minutes. Free, in your browser, no account.