Cashfreight.com’s Freight Recommendations - LoadAssist®
LOADASSIST WILL HELP YOU POST YOUR LOAD CORRECTLY!!
Posting loads can be and is a complicated process for shippers. There is a lot that anyone not fully versed in the freight world would miss, or simply not know. One such thing is load pricing. How does one know what freight rate is fair? How does one know what factors go into a carrier’s expenses? For these reasons, Cashfreight.com has come up with a recommendation system called LoadAssist to help shippers in the load creation process. From trailer type selection to safety equipment, LoadAssist can recommend the best load posting details to get loads moved quickly and effortlessly.
What do we base the recommendations on?
When posting a load, the first item we ask for is the commodity, or product being hauled. Let’s use the example of feed oats for livestock. In the search box, the user types in oats and the system brings up a few options. These different options simply determine the purpose, packaging and quality of the product, for example Food Grade Oats, Animal Feed Oats, or Oat Seeds, etc. We use the commodity to recommend the information directly related to the type of freight being hauled, such as Trailer Type, Tie Down/Securing Equipment, and Safety Equipment. If, for example, companies that haul Animal Feed oats generally use a van trailer, with load lockers to haul the oats, and generally require that the driver use safety equipment such as a hard hat, gloves, earplugs, and safety glasses, when a user posts a load with that commodity, the items that are most used for that commodity, are automatically filled in as required and the user has the option to either make appropriate changes to the recommendations, or accept them by simply moving on to the next step.
What aspects are recommended?
LoadAssist recommends a great deal of the items in the load creation process, almost to the point where it is easier to mention the ones we don’t recommend. However, we will break them down into 3 categories: Load Recommendations, Time Recommendations, and Price Recommendations.
Load Recommendations
Load recommendations are the most basic recommendations that rely on nothing more than the commodity being hauled. They include:
Trailer types and subtypes.
Special Conditions such as Overweight/Overlength Permits and Team Drivers, Hazmat requirements
Safety Equipment such as hard hats, gloves, earplugs, and safety glasses
Securing/Tie down equipment such as straps and dunnage
Delivery Equipment such as hand truck or lumpers
Insurance requirements
And Safersys ratings and LoadRates
These items are based primarily on what is most commonly chosen by those who ship the same commodity. On the list, LoadAssist figures a percentage representing how often that item is used, which is displayed to the right of the item as a recommendation guide for the user.
Time Recommendations
Time recommendations, referring to the recommendations of time of additional pickups after the first and any number of deliveries, are slightly more complicated than load recommendations as there are several different factors involved. These factors include:
Distance from the first pickup location to the last drop-off location, including any additional locations (based on the legal 55 mile per hour average speed)
How many pickups and drop-offs are included on the load (about 1 hour each)
Federal DOT Regulations, such as max driving hours and mandatory breaks
Fuel Time (based on an average fuel capacity of 300 miles)
Extra items such as tarping and scale time
And Business Hours
Using these factors, LoadAssist follows FMCSA requirements, and calculates the optimal time it would take for the driver to pick up, transport, and arrive at the delivery point. This calculation allows carriers the necessary time, and for shippers to understand how long a load will take to be delivered, in particular for those who are unfamiliar with the trucking industry and the laws associated.
Price Recommendations
When it comes to freight pricing there are quite a few factors that make the recommendation process more complicated than either the load or time recommendations. That is because both load and time recommendations are factors in the freight price algorithm. These factors include:
Load and Time Recommendations (or rather whatever the user chooses for those options) such as trailer type, price per mile, and lumpers
Carrier Overhead Costs (Equipment costs, office expenses, maintenance and repairs, etc.)
Price of Fuel per Gallon
Driver Pay
Carrier Profit
Insurance
Non-driving work time (loading, unloading, tarping, etc.)
Negotiation Option (OfferUp OfferDown)
Miscommunication can cause so many of these freight costs to be overlooked or forgotten. LoadAssist ensures that they are all included in our recommendations to provide fair pricing. LoadAssist also recommends that both negotiation options, OfferUp OfferDown and LoadItNow, be used for each load to provide multiple options for carriers to choose from and allowing shippers to save money through automatic negotiation. The Load rate calculated by these numbers is used as the OfferUp OfferDown recommendation (highest of the two), we then use the OfferUp OfferDown amount to recommend a lower LoadItNow price that carriers can use for immediate contracting. LoadItNow will usually save Shippers north of 10% on the load rate.
RESULT?- HOW CASHFREIGHT.COM'S LOADASSIST HAS HELPED.
With LoadAssist recommendations in place, shippers can feel confident that their pricing and scheduling will be consistent with FMCSA rules and will work well for carriers, thereby increasing desirability. Cashfreight.com is always improving the recommendation process to ensure a win-win for all users. Money can also be saved with the PowerNegotiator options Cashfreight.com provides. Shippers can rest assured that Cashfreight.com can fully replace and automate the role of a broker, but in a far more efficient and effective way allowing them to save money on overhead and freight rates.