Contracts now support the ability to rate a shipment based on the Product Categories on the individual shipment line items. Using the contract importer, you can add rates for up to 10 product categories on a lane. In this example, the lane has rates for 2 product categories, $1 per unit for Gasoline, and $2 per unit for Diesel. You can see how this data is entered in the contract import file below.
Once the contract is imported, you will see the product category rate values in the contract by viewing the rate table data within the contract.
When a shipment is searching for a matching contract, in addition to the standard location, equipment type, and mode matching criteria, the contract must also contain rates for all the product categories in the shipment in order to apply. In this example for a multi compartment tanker truck, there are 3 shipment line items, with 2 different product categories for Gasoline and Diesel.
When the contract matches the shipment and the rates are applied, the system will rate each individual line item and then sum up all the line charges to produce the total shipment charge. In this case the rates for the shipment are:
Gasoline - Unleaded (100 units x $1) = $100
Gasoline - E85 (250 units x $1) = $250
Diesel - (500 units x $2) = $1000
When all of the individual line item charges are summed up, the total rate charged on the shipment is $1350
Contracts - Address Book External IDs
Contracts now support the ability to match a shipment’s origin and destination locations based on the Address Book External Reference ID for the locations. This allows you to set up different rates for the same address location. In this example, I can set up 2 address book records with the same address location, but with different External Reference IDs. In this case, one of the address book records has an External Reference ID of 1234567.
Using the contract importer, you can populate the Origin Address External Reference field with the same value, 1234567. This can also be done as well for the Destination location in the contract.
Once the contract is imported, you can view the Origin for the lanes and it will display the External Reference ID value instead of a traditional address, city, province, or postal code.
When the contract shipment matching occurs, the External Reference ID matching will be the most specific location match, and will take precedence over matching a complete address. Therefore, this allows the same address to have multiple rates set up in the system.
The updated contract importer template that contains both location External Reference IDs and Product Categories can be accessed here.