WebCargo Ocean was created to make the daily lives of ocean forwarders easier. With your access, you gain instant access to all available market rates while being able to quote to your customers in record times.

Within this article, you’ll find out how to search for static rates, select them to create quotations and send them to your customers. Keep reading to find out more.

First, open the side menu, click the New button, or the plus symbol, and select New Ocean Rate & Quote.

This will take you to the submission form for your quotation. Here you will find fields such as the route information (origin and destination address), your cargo ready date, the commodity type, and the shipment weight and dimension details.

First, if you are shipping from a specific address, enter it in the search bar and select it from the list of options.

Alternatively, if you are shipping from a port, click on the boat symbol. This will open a separate search bar to enter the port name or port city. Select the port from the dropdown. This will be identifiable by the 5-letter port code.

You will have the same options for the destination location and port. Choose if you want to ship to a specific address or a port, and select the option from the dropdown.

Next, select the date your shipment will be ready. If you have entered a specific address for the departure, you will see the option to select a Cargo ready date. If selected, the earliest departure date will be 24 hours/1 day after the chosen date. This is to allow time to pick up the goods.

If a specific port is chosen, the option to select the Earliest departure date will show. This will automatically be selected as the current date.

Click on the date to open the calendar to select another date.

Bear in mind that the date selected will be collected No earlier than 24 hours after the selected date.

Select the Commodity from the dropdown. You can select it from the list for the most common commodities, enter the HS Code, or the commodity name in the search bar.

Next, enter the shipment weight and dimensions. You can first select if the container is LCL or FCL. Depending on which you choose, you’ll be presented with different fields to fill in.

Selecting LCL will allow you to enter individual Units, the type of unit, dimensions, weight and you can state whether the cargo is turnable and stackable.

Selecting FCL will give you different options to enter your cargo details. You can enter how many units you’re shipping, as well as the type of container, and the dimensions for the FCL shipment.

Next, enter your Services information. Select the Incoterm from the list dropdown then use the Customer section to enter the name of the customer you want to quote to. Find out how to manage your clients in this article.

Finally, select whether Customs will be handled (by who) for Import and Export shipments. Toggle the switch depending on if the customs charges should be included in the quotation.

If you previously selected the option to ship from port to port, you will see alternative toggles buttons for Port charges. Select whether the port charges should be included at origin and destination.

Bear in mind that the Incoterm and Customer are not mandatory. You will need to have rates uploaded for the specific customers if you are selecting them from the dropdown. Once you have checked everything, click on the Search and Quote button.

This will then collect all rates available for your chosen routes.

Once your rates have loaded you will be presented with all available quoting options. Add filters to sort your results, for example, for the Cheapest and Quickest, and also by Validity of the rates.

You can also choose to view the search results in a specific currency using the currency converter. This will show the results in the chosen currency, but when finalising the shipment, the rate will be shown in the original currency.

Clicking on a rate will open up a more detailed view of what is included in the price.

Once you have viewed the rates, you can add profits, which will automatically be added to the total of the price.

Important: if you have already configured profits using the Markup management tool, these profits will automatically be added to the rate for the selected customer.

Next, you’ll need to select which rates you want to include in your quote. To do this, click on the corresponding box to the left-hand side of each.

Once you’ve selected your rates, click on the Quote from selection button.

You will then be taken to a page where you can view quote information for import and export charges, which can be edited.

First, state how long the rates are available for by clicking on the Valid until section. This will open up a calendar to select the validity date. Next, select the currency the quotation should be shown in.

Further down the page, you’ll see the currency conversion. This is based on real-time conversion rates fed in through Openexchange.

Then you can select the Status of the quote.

Underneath, you will find the customer information section. Here you can view information of the user who created the quote and select a specific customer if you have previously added one. Click on Add contact info to select an existing customer from your database.

Either scroll down and choose a specific customer, or use the search bar to search by name.

After adding the user and customer information, you’ll find the load information for the shipment. This data is based on the information you entered earlier and cannot be changed from here.

Origin import and export charges

First, you will find the itinerary of your shipment, along with the origin and destination entered earlier, the departure and arrival date, and the estimated transit time in days.

Within the import charges section, you will view all the different fee names, along with any remarks, rate type, number of units, container type and the minimum and maximum price of the fee.

Add profit to each charge within the Profit column, and the Unit price within the unit price column. Any time you change the price, the number in the Amount column will automatically update.

Group fees and clone to all rates

If you want to remove a specific fee from the import or export charges section, click on the corresponding “x” to the right-hand side of each fee.

Alternatively, add additional fees by scrolling to the bottom of the charges list and clicking on the Add fee button.

This will add a new row where you can select the type of fee, number of units, price of the fee and other fields.

At the bottom of the charges section, you’ll find the exchange rate for the chosen currency, along with the total amount to be paid and the profit you’ll receive if any was added.

If you have specific terms and conditions, you can add these for origin, mainleg or destination.

Attach any supporting documents to the terms and conditions section.

Finally, you can add any internal remarks to help anyone within your organization who is viewing the quote understand more about it.

Once you have checked your quote information, you are ready to save. If all is entered correctly, a message will appear on the screen stating that you have successfully saved your quote.

PDF Settings

Within the PDF settings section is where you can choose what will be presented in the downloadable PDF quotation which is sent to your customers. You can choose to have the Contact details as Full or Reduced.

Full will have their name, complete address, phone number and email address, whereas Reduced will only show the name, phone number and email address.

Quote type

Detailed view and charges comparison - what is the difference between the two?

Definitions:

Language

Selecting the language from the dropdown will change the language of the quotation.

Show carrier info

If you want the carrier logo and name included in the quote, ensure the Show Carrier Info button is turned on. Turning it off will remove the carrier’s name and logo; however, the user will still see options labelled with characters instead.

For example, instead of displaying Vanguard’s name and logo, the system will show "Option A," "Option B," and so on. This helps maintain clarity while anonymizing carrier details.

Show totals only

Click the Show totals only button to remove the detailed views of all of the charges and only see the total of the charges.

Toggling the button off will show you a detailed view of the included charges.

On the same preview page, you’ll also find at the top right hand side options to manage your quotation. One is the option to download the PDF to send to your clients.

All the previously chosen information will be visible within the quotation.

If you wish to duplicate the quote, click on the Duplicate button.

Once you have duplicated the quote, a message will appear stating that the updated exchange rate has been applied. You can then proceed to make any changes to the quote, and save it as shown earlier.

Editing an existing quotation

Click on the edit button to open up the details of the quote and make any necessary changes, for example, if you’ve received a response from your customer, and you need to update the status, if you need to update the validity period, and origin and destination port charges.

Remember, any time you make any changes click the Save button.

To view all of your existing ocean quotations, regardless of their status, open the side menu, select the Quotes section, and click on Ocean quotes.

You will be directed to a page to view your Ocean quotations if you have any.

By default, all quotes will be selected to be viewed within the list. You can choose different filters to view quotes that are Active, Booked, or Closed

What do the different statuses mean?

Active means that quotes are still in action and have not yet been closed or won. This can mean they are in the draft status, have been created, have been sent to customers, or amongst other things that the customer is yet to reply.

Booked means that the quote has been won and you have created a booking between the client and the freight forwarder. Bear in mind, that you need to manually change the status of the quote to Won for the quotation to be moved to this section.

Closed means that the quote was lost, or not accepted by the customer, cancelled or has expired.

Finally, you can search using the quote request key. This is also called the Quote ID and can be found within the quotations.

Adding filters to your search results

Add or remove columns within your quote list to view specific information. To do this, click on the Add/Remove columns button. This will open a separate pop-up where you can either select or deselect specific columns to make a more compact view.

How to export a CSV of your quotes

Click on the Export CSV button to download a list of your active quotes.

The downloaded CSV will contain information regarding your Quotes or shipments, including the Request, or Quote ID, the customer it was offered to, the type of container, and the quote/shipment itinerary.