Vendor rate cards

A vendor rate card captures what you've agreed to pay for specific services. It drives cost calculation on bookings and AP match on invoices.

Structure

• Vendor — owning vendor.
• Validity period — start and end date.
• Currency.
• Service scope — mode (air / sea / road / customs), equipment, origin / destination set, commodity exclusions.
• Rates — base rate + surcharges + accessorials.
• Volume tiers — lower rate above threshold.
• Notes — free-text special conditions.

Rate lines

Each line has:

• Charge code (matching the platform's tariff list).
• Basis (flat, per kg, per km, per container, per stop).
• Amount or formula.
• Min / max if applicable.

Fuel / CAF / other indexed surcharges

Indexed surcharges link to a named index:

• BAF / CAF for ocean — from carrier-published schedules.
• Fuel surcharge for road / air — from regional indices.

Each month's index value updates the effective surcharge automatically without a new rate card version.

Versioning

Rate cards are versioned. Published versions are immutable — amendments create a new version. Prior versions remain referenced by shipments that costed under them.

Booking-time cost

When ops books a vendor onto a shipment, the active rate card resolves into cost lines on the shipment. Unambiguous cost — no hunting email threads.

AP match

At invoice time, the rate card is the source of truth for "what's expected". See three-way match.

Approval workflow

New rate cards or versions > threshold amount / change route through a procurement approval before publishing. Audited.

Expiry

• 30 / 14 / 7 days before expiry, procurement gets a reminder to renegotiate.
• Expired rate cards fall off booking-cost resolution; shipments booked after expiry need a new card or manual cost entry.

Benchmarks

For common lanes, the platform shows a market benchmark (via integrated market rate feeds) next to your vendor's rate. Negotiation leverage.