Blog · Board and management reporting · Freight brokers and 3PLs
The ten questions the president of a freight brokerage puts to the shipper sales and carrier teams, which shipper-lane pairs lose money, where is one carrier the lane, which lanes are rejecting before the market does, where are we primary and where are we the backup, which shippers give us a fraction of their lanes, what does a rejection cost us, which shipper reps' books depend on one shipper, which carrier reps keep their carriers, what is the spot share of the book, and what changed, each with the table from the load ledger and the tender log, and the answer to send back.
A freight brokerage president asks how the shippers are doing and hears shipper-level margins. The load ledger and the tender log hold the pairs, the lanes and the positions as tables. This guide is the ten questions, the tables, and the answer to send back.
| # | The question | The table | Identity | Send back |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Which shipper-lane pairs lose money? | Margin per load by pair; quadrant; recovery at lane norm | Loads' margin sums to ledger | Shipper-level margin |
| 2 | Where is one carrier the lane? | Carrier concentration per lane, threshold by volume band, acceptance trend | Loads per lane sum across carriers | Carrier count |
| 3 | Which lanes are rejecting before the market does? | Rejection rate by lane against baseline; carrier split | Tenders = accepted + refused | The market index |
| 4 | Where are we primary, and where backup? | Primary tender share per shipper lane; acceptance when first vs cascaded | Tenders first plus cascaded | Volume as position |
| 5 | Which shippers give us a fraction of their lanes? | Lane share per shipper; lanes not served | Loads sum per shipper | Shipper revenue |
| 6 | What does a rejection cost? | Cover rate less contracted rate per rejected load, by lane | Every refused load's cover recorded | A rejection count |
| 7 | Whose book depends on one shipper? | Shipper concentration per shipper rep; count to half | Revenue sums per rep | Company concentration |
| 8 | Which carrier reps keep their carriers? | Carrier retention and acceptance per carrier rep | Carriers assigned sum | Carrier count per rep |
| 9 | What is the spot share of the book? | Spot vs contract loads and margin, trended | Loads in one rate type | A margin average |
| 10 | What changed? | The movements page | Every line cites | Narrative |
President: Which pairs lose money? Response: Shipper 2207 on Chicago to Dallas: minus a hundred dollars a load, 210 loads a quarter, inside a shipper at 14 percent. Contracted customer rate set fourteen months ago; spot carrier. Recovery at the lane norm $61,000 a year. Table 1, row 1. President: Is the lane the problem or the price? Response: The lane's rejection rate tripled against baseline over four weeks; the first-choice carrier refuses six in ten. The price is stale and the lane has tightened. Tables 3 and 2. President: Are we primary there? Response: Third in the routing guide; we see the loads two others refused, and accept 94 percent of them on time. That is the case for primary, with the price adjusted. Table 4.
Three tables, one pair, and a shipper conversation with two asks.
Shipper-level margin. The losing lane inside the profitable shipper.
Carrier count as coverage. Six carriers and one moves eighty percent.
Rejections from the index. The nation tightened; the lane is what matters.
Volume as position. Fifty loads a month, all leftovers.
Covirage produces the ten tables from the load ledger and the tender log, with the identities checked. The freight page describes the setup, and the margin per load guide covers the first table.
Margin per load by shipper-lane pair, because the pairs at or below zero are hidden inside shippers that are profitable overall and lanes that are profitable on average, and the pair is where a repricing or a carrier change recovers the margin. The president reads the pairs before the shippers.
Rejection rate, primary tender share and acceptance do; they are the tender log against the load ledger. Margin, concentration and lane share come from the load ledger alone. Both are exports the transportation management system already produces.
Loads' margin sums to the ledger's gross margin; loads per lane sum across carriers; tenders offered equal accepted plus refused; every refused tender's load has a subsequent tender or is uncovered. A table that shows a shipper's margin without the pairs beneath it is sent back.