Loads

A load is one shipment for a shipper: where it's picked up and delivered (2 to 20 stops, each with its own time window in its own time zone), the equipment and freight, what the shipper pays and what the carrier is paid, the carrier and driver, and its history of check calls. It's for freight brokers and carriers. Loads move across a board from Open to Delivered, and today's pickups and deliveries are on the Loads page, the dashboard and the calendar.

Loads are a module: Settings → Modules → Loads. It's on the Pro and Business plans. New Freight and logistics workspaces start with it on; for every other business type it starts off and an owner or admin turns it on. Turning it off hides the pages, the menu, the dashboard card, the calendar's stops and ⌘K's results, and keeps every load; the workspace export always includes them. The trucking sample workspace has it on.

Lanes stay deals: a deal like "Joliet, IL → Memphis, TN dry van" is how you win the freight, and each load run on it can name that lane. In a Freight and logistics workspace the menu, pages and buttons call deals Lanes too (Settings → Workspace → Business type).

Who can do it:

Every member sees both amounts (the customer rate and the carrier pay) and the margin.

1. Create a load

Click New load on the Loads page, on a company's page (it's the shipper, and the first pickup takes the company's address), or on a lane's page (New load on this lane: the shipper, the lane and the lane's last equipment are filled in). On a load's page, Duplicate opens a new load filled in from it, with the stops' dates cleared.

Fill in:

• Shipper (required): the company the load is for. Shipper contact is optional. Lane offers the shipper's deals (while Deals is on).
• Owner: you, by default. Owners and admins can pick another member.
• Load number: leave it blank and Fifi takes the next number ("Leave blank for #1043"; a workspace's first load is #1001). Owners and admins can type a number, to carry on from another system's numbering, if no load has it yet ("Load #48213 already exists"). A number never changes.
• Equipment: dry van, reefer, flatbed, step deck, Conestoga, power only, box truck, hotshot, tanker, container or other. A reefer takes a temperature range in whole °F (−40 to 100).
• Freight: weight (lb), pieces, commodity, hazmat, and the shipper's reference (PO or order number).
• Money: the customer rate and the carrier pay, each all in, in dollars ("1450" or "1450.50", up to $1,000,000). Fifi works out the margin as you type ("Margin $270 (18.6%)", or "Loss $40 (−3.2%)"). Detention, lumper and truck-ordered-not-used fees aren't separate lines: add them to the totals and say why in a check call.
• Carrier: the carrier company, the driver (a contact, so their phone number is in one place), and the truck and trailer numbers. All optional while the load is open.
• Stops (see below), and Notes.

Click Create load. If something isn't right, Fifi says what next to the field and keeps everything you typed.

Stops

A load has 2 to 20 stops, in order: the first is a pickup and the last a delivery; stop-offs go in between. For each stop:

• Kind (pickup or delivery), Facility (optional), Address and City and state ("Joliet, IL": shown on cards, lists and the calendar).
• Time zone: US zones are listed first. A new stop takes the previous stop's zone.
• Date and Time, in the stop's own zone: an appointment at that time. Add Until for a first-come, first-served window (it can end up to 7 days later). Put stops in time order: each stop's window has to reach the previous stop's start time.
• Appointment number and Notes (optional).
• Dock appointment (optional): while Online booking is on, click Find dock appointments to pick a confirmed booking at one of your doors within 36 hours of the stop's time (from Online booking, a booking type that needs a seat). A booking goes on one stop. The stop then shows "Dock appointment: Door 5, Tue, Oct 20, 7:00 AM CDT"; if the booking is cancelled it says "Dock appointment cancelled".

Move up, Move down and Remove are on each stop; Add stop adds one at the end. Everything works from the keyboard.

2. The board

Loads opens on the board: Open (needs a carrier), Covered (carrier and pay agreed), Dispatched (truck on its way to the pickup), In transit, and Delivered (the last 7 days). Each column shows its count, its revenue and its margin. Each card shows the load's number, the shipper, the route, the pickup time in its zone, the equipment, the rate and margin, the carrier (or "No carrier"), and Late or "Stop 2 of 3" when they apply.

To move a load, drag its card, or open its ⋯ menu and choose Move to… (the way to do it from the keyboard or a phone):

• moving an open load to Covered or later asks for its carrier and carrier pay (Cover load);
• Delivered… asks when it was delivered (now by default, at most a day ahead);
• Cancel load… asks why (Shipper cancelled; No carrier found; Truck ordered, not used (TONU); Rate not agreed; Duplicate; Other). Cancelled loads leave the board: find them in List with the Cancelled status, where Reopen puts them back as open.

If someone else moved the load first, Fifi says "This load was moved by someone else" and the board refreshes. A delivered load can go back to In transit if it was marked by mistake.

On a phone the board shows one column at a time: pick it with the status buttons at the top.

3. Stops in progress and check calls

On a load's page each stop has Arrived and then Departed. The time is now by default, in the stop's zone; you can change it (but not more than a few minutes ahead). Departing a pickup moves a covered or dispatched load to In transit. Arrivals and departures need a carrier first ("Assign a carrier first").

A stop is Late when its window is over (its end, or its time when it has no end) and it hasn't arrived (a pickup) or left (a delivery), on a load that isn't delivered or cancelled.

Check call (on the load's page, or a card's menu) records what the driver said, where they are and their ETA. The History lists everything that happened to the load, newest first, with who did it: created, moves, the carrier, arrivals and departures, and check calls. Check calls can't be edited or deleted.

With Texting on, Text driver on the load's page opens your conversation with the driver.

4. List, Today and export

List has every load, 50 a page, with filters kept in the page's address: the number or the shipper's reference (exact), the status (more than one, or Live: not delivered or cancelled), the equipment, the owner, pickup and delivery dates (your days), and Late only. A company's or lane's See all opens the list filtered by it. Sort by pickup, delivery, number or last updated. On a phone the rows are cards.

Export CSV downloads what's filtered, one row per load: number, status, shipper, reference, origin and destination, the first pickup and last delivery (in their own zones, with the zone), stops, equipment, weight, carrier, driver, rate, carrier pay, margin, delivered and cancelled (and why), owner and lane. Exports are in the activity log.

Today lists today's pickups and deliveries in time order, with their status, Late, and the Arrived and Departed buttons. Each time is in the stop's zone, and also in yours when they differ. The dashboard's Today's loads card shows the first 8.

The top of the Loads page sums up the month: "This month: 38 delivered · $41,250 revenue · $6,180 margin (15.0%)". Loads aren't in Reports or Ask Fifi.

5. Where else loads show

• Company pages: Loads lists the company's latest 10 as shipper or carrier, with how many are live and delivered, and See all.
• Lane (deal) pages: Loads on this lane: how many, this year's delivered revenue and margin, the latest 5, and New load on this lane.
• Calendar: each stop of a load that isn't cancelled, at its window ("Pickup · #48213 · Joliet Packaging"), under Show → Loads. "Me" shows the loads you own; Everyone shows all. Stops move on their load, not on the calendar. A view shows up to 300 stops, then "+N more".
• ⌘K: type "48213", "#48213" or "load 48213" to open the load.

6. Deleting and restoring

The load's owner or an admin can delete it (a delivered load, or one that was delivered and moved back, admins only, since its money is your history); the Loads page then offers Undo for 10 minutes. Deleted loads are in Settings → Trash for 30 days, where owners and admins restore them, and are then deleted for good with their stops and history.

A company that any load names as shipper or carrier stays in the Trash while those loads exist; after 30 days its phone, address and notes are cleared, as for a company with deals.

7. Documents: proof of delivery, rate confirmations and more

Each load's page has a Documents card for its paperwork: the proof of delivery (POD), the signed rate confirmation, the bill of lading (BOL) and anything else (lumper receipts, scale tickets). Documents are PDFs or photos (JPEG, PNG or WebP), up to 10 MB each and 30 a load.

• Add document: pick the kind, for a POD optionally the delivery stop it's for, and the file. On a phone you can take a photo with the camera. Photos are shrunk before they're sent, and where they were taken (their location and other details the camera stored) is removed. The upload shows its progress; the load's history says "Added a POD (pod-48213.pdf)".
• Mark delivered offers a second step, Add the proof of delivery, with Skip.
• Download: PDFs always download (they never open inside Fifi); Open shows a photo in a new tab, and Download saves it. The list shows an icon for each (no previews: a photo can be 10 MB).
• Remove (in ⋯): whoever added a document can remove it for 24 hours; owners and admins can remove any. It's deleted for good (there's no Trash for documents) and the load's history keeps a note of it.

Documents are kept in Fifi's file storage (not in the database) and count, with the media library, against your plan's Photo, media and document storage (Pro 10 GB, Business 50 GB; Settings → Plan shows what's used). Deleting a load deletes its documents 30 days later, when it leaves the Trash.

No POD. A delivered load without a proof of delivery shows No POD on its page, its board card and its list row; the board's Delivered column says how many of its loads have none ("3 without POD", with All missing PODs to open the list of every delivered load missing one), and the list's Missing POD filter shows them all. The list's CSV has a POD column (Yes or No).

What Fifi refuses, and why:

• "Use a PDF, or a JPEG, PNG or WebP photo." Word files, HEIC photos (the message says how to share them as JPEG), GIFs and anything else aren't taken; Fifi looks at the file itself, not its name.
• "This PDF has scripts or attachments; print it to PDF and try again." PDFs with JavaScript, embedded files or forms that run code are refused. Printing the PDF to a new PDF (any computer's Print → Save as PDF) gives a plain copy.
• "Documents can be up to 10 MB." "This workspace's media and document storage is full." At 30 documents the card says so and Add document is off until one is removed.
• "Document storage isn't set up yet.": Fifi's file storage isn't connected for this workspace yet (the rest of Loads works).
• Sample workspaces show their placeholder documents but don't take uploads (neither Add document nor Mark delivered's POD step is offered).

8. The rate confirmation

Once a load has a carrier (covered or later), its Documents card has Rate confirmation: a printable page for the carrier with your workspace's name, logo and business address, the load's number and today's date, the carrier, driver, truck and trailer, the equipment and temperatures, the freight, every stop (facility, address, window in its own zone, appointment number, notes) and the carrier pay, with lines for the carrier's signature and date. It never shows the customer rate or your margin. Click Print or save as PDF (Letter or A4), send it from your own email, and when the carrier signs it, add the signed copy to the load as a rate confirmation.

9. API and webhooks

With an API key that has Loads: Read, GET /api/v1/loads lists loads (filter by status, shipper, carrier, lane and pickup time) and GET /api/v1/loads/{id} reads one, each with its stops and its documents' details (not the files themselves). Loads can't be changed through the API. Webhooks can send load.created, load.updated, load.status_changed, load.delivered and load.deleted: see API and Webhooks.

Troubleshooting

• "Assign a carrier first": covered and later loads need a carrier and carrier pay; use Cover load (or the form's Carrier fields), then record Arrived.
• "This load was moved by someone else": a teammate moved it a moment before you; the board shows where it is now.
• "Someone else changed this load after you opened it" when saving: someone else saved it first. Reload shows theirs; copy anything you typed first.
• Times look an hour off: check each stop's Time zone; times are typed and shown in the stop's own zone, and your own zone is in your profile.
• Loads don't show on the calendar: turn on Show → Loads; stops of cancelled loads aren't shown.
• A document won't upload: see the messages in Documents. A phone's HEIC photo needs sharing as JPEG; a PDF with scripts needs printing to a new PDF.
• No Rate confirmation button: the load needs a carrier and carrier pay first (Cover load).