Rate confirmation automation for freight brokers and 3PLs
Rate confirmation automation reads tenders and rate confirmations from email, extracts stops, appointment times, references, rates and accessorial terms, and creates or updates the load in your TMS. Anything that disagrees with the customer tender goes to a rep before it reaches the carrier.
Rate confirmation intake · one run
Rules · Model · Person- 1
Detect and sort
Rules - 2
Read the document
Model - 3
Validate
Rules - 4
Resolve exceptions
Person - 5
Create or update the load
Rules - 6
Compare the carrier's rate con
Rules
- What goes in
- Customer tenders, load offers and carrier rate confirmations as email bodies, PDFs and spreadsheets
- What comes out
- A load in the TMS with stops, windows, references and accessorial terms filled in
- Who approves
- Rep or dispatcher, for fields that differ from the tender or fall below confidence
Where the time goes today
What logistics teams tell us about this work.
Tenders arrive in every format
One shipper emails a PDF, another pastes the load into the message body and a third sends a spreadsheet of twenty loads. Reps retype stops, windows and PO numbers into McLeod or MercuryGate.
A transposed digit becomes a missed appointment
A wrong delivery window or a swapped reference number does not show up until the driver is at the dock or the shipper's system rejects the invoice.
Rate cons that do not match the tender
The carrier's rate confirmation shows a rate $50 higher than agreed, or drops the detention terms. Nobody compares the two documents line by line on a busy day.
How the automated workflow runs
Each step is fixed rules, a model reading or drafting, or a person on your team. The people steps are where approvals sit.
- 1
Detect and sort
Identifies each email as a tender, a load change, a rate confirmation or something else, and links it to an existing load by reference number.
Rules - 2
Read the document
Extracts pickup and delivery stops, appointment windows, commodity, weight, equipment, references (PO, pickup, BOL), rate and accessorial terms from the PDF or the message body.
Model - 3
Validate
Checks addresses against known locations, windows against pickup-before-delivery order, reference formats against each customer's pattern, and the rate against the contract lane when you provide one.
Rules - 4
Resolve exceptions
A rep sees each mismatch with the source line highlighted: a changed appointment, a missing reference or a rate that differs. They accept, edit or reply to the shipper.
Person - 5
Create or update the load
Writes the load or the change to the TMS, attaches the source document and logs which person or process changed each field.
Rules - 6
Compare the carrier's rate con
When the signed rate confirmation returns, its rate and terms are compared with the booked load, and any difference is flagged before the load is confirmed as covered.
Rules
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Controls and approvals
- Customer rates and carrier-facing messages are kept apart. The comparison with a carrier's rate confirmation never exposes what the customer pays.
- Any change to rate, appointment time or accessorial terms after booking needs a rep's confirmation and is logged with the document it came from.
- Loads that fail validation are held for review and are never created with partial data.
What we leave to people
We do not accept or decline loads and we do not set rates. The agent enters what the documents say. Customer quirks, such as a shipper that always shifts the delivery window by a day, are written down once as rules instead of left to the model.
Systems it connects to
Examples of tools we work with for this workflow. Anything with an API or a controlled interface is in scope.
- McLeod
- MercuryGate
- Turvo
- DAT
- Truckstop
- Gmail
We create and update loads through your TMS API or EDI where available and use controlled browser automation where they are not. Source documents are attached to the load so a rep can always see what a field came from.
What to measure
We set a baseline from your own records in the audit, then report these every month.
Illustrative example
A desk that enters 150 tenders a week at 5 minutes each spends about 12 hours a week on keying. Template tenders that arrive clean skip review while messy ones still reach a rep, and the audit sorts your real tenders into those two groups.
| Measure | How to read it |
|---|---|
| Touchless load entry rate | Share of tendered loads created in the TMS with no human edit. |
| Entry errors found after dispatch | Wrong windows, references or addresses discovered once a load is covered. |
| Tender-to-booked time | Minutes from the tender arriving to a load ready for covering. |
| Rate mismatches caught early | Differences between tender and rate confirmation flagged before dispatch. |
Common questions
Can AI extract data from rate confirmations accurately?
On clean digital PDFs it usually reads the fields reliably, and on scans and odd layouts it needs review. We score accuracy per field on a sample of your own documents before launch, and low-confidence fields always go to a rep.
Does it create loads in McLeod or MercuryGate?
Yes where your plan gives us an API or EDI route, and through controlled browser automation where it does not. We confirm what your setup allows during the audit, before quoting.
What happens when a shipper sends a spreadsheet with many loads?
Each row becomes a separate load draft that goes through the same validation. A clean sheet can create all of them at once, and rows with problems wait for a rep with the cell highlighted.
How is customer rate data kept away from carriers?
Customer and carrier rates are stored in separate fields, and carrier-facing messages are built only from the carrier side. The comparison step reports a difference without stating the customer's figure.
Related
- SolutionDocument intelligenceAI that reads contracts, invoices, forms and claims, checks every field and enters the data into your systems.Read more
- BlueprintOrder-to-cash systemOrder intake is the first stage of order-to-cash, and a load entered correctly is invoiced correctly.Read more
- IndustryAI for logisticsRate confirmations, BOLs, PODs, carrier invoices and status updates, handled in your TMS.Read more
Tell us how your logistics team handles this today.
A 30-minute call with an engineer. You will leave knowing what a system could do for that workflow and what it would take to build.
What happens next
- 1
Strategy call
We learn how the workflow runs today and what a good outcome would be.
- 2
Workflow audit
We map the process and measure where a system would save the most time.
- 3
Proposal
A written scope, timeline and fixed price for your first system. No obligation to build.