Departments

In order for a freight brokerage to function effectively and efficiently, brokerages must divvy up the responsibilities that must be looked after. It is best that the brokerage divides all the responsibilities into areas that have things in common, so a department can be made. Smaller brokerages have less departments than the bigger companies because they do not have as much work to deal with. A workload for a smaller company would require less people and departments since there are less loads going through the company. To get an idea of some of the departments that are in a brokerage, keep reading!

The first and one of the most important departments is the customer side department. They are the ones that are in touch with the companies that need their freight moved from one place to the next. These people need to be able to not only keep the relationships they have with the customers, but also forge new ones with new companies. I have seen people that have been hired to a freight brokerage because they have had a lot of contact with a customer that the freight brokerage wanted to do business with. While that is not the only reason they are hired to that position, it definitely puts them ahead of the other people applying to that same job. These are the people that are creating some of the loads that the brokers are booking since the customer side does not deal with the transportation companies.

The freight brokers are the ones that make the company successful. They do rely a lot on the customer side to get them loads, but they can also create their own. Let’s say that a customer was using another brokerage and the driver cannot get to the pickup on time. The company that needs the freight moved could then call a broker, so they can find a truck that can pick up the load on time. This can be a big money-maker for a broker since they can charge the customer higher because they need that load to be delivered. This is where having relationships with transportation companies comes in. The more trucking companies you know that have trucks that do certain routes, the more likely you are to find a truck quickly to service that customer.

Brokers do have a hard time creating and maintaining a relationship with transportation companies, however. A broker’s main job is to try to find a truck that can take a load at a price that is less than what the customer is paying. That margin is how the company makes money. Because of this, brokers must be careful about what freight they take. If they accept a load that they cannot fulfill, they will have to either anger the customer, or pay a trucking company much more than they want to, which results in a loss since they need to get the load delivered. These losses can be very detrimental to a company. Too many losses on loads, and they cannot afford to continue running the business at the capacity they are at. That is just one of the reasons why having a good broker is important to a freight brokerage.

Another very important department of a freight brokerage is the track and trace team. They are the ones that will be calling the truck drivers and their dispatchers. The dispatchers are the people at the trucking companies that are in charge of the drivers and will be receiving the locations and estimated times of arrival. The track and trace team will deal with the drivers and dispatchers as they are doing the delivery and getting important information that the customer needs. They are also responsible for taking calls from drivers and dispatchers about problems they are having during the load. There are plenty of things that can go wrong with a load, and the track and trace team need to be ready to handle whatever happens and come up with a solution. They are also the ones that will take care of the paperwork that the drivers have with each load. One very important thing for the track and trace team is to get the paperwork that the drivers and the dispatchers have with each individual load. The papers that the drivers have are call the bill of lading. This has a lot of the load information such as what they are carrying, the weight of the cargo, what times they got in and out of the pickup and delivery at, and the signatures of the people that work at the facilities. This paperwork is essential since it has all the information on it. It is also very important because it is one of the only ways for a brokerage to ensure that the driver has told the truth and has completed delivery of the product. This is then sent to the customer team and the accounting team to verify with the customer that the load has been delivered.

The last department in the process of completing a load is the accounting department. They are the ones that are responsible for handling the payments that happen. There are two parts to the accounting department: the accounts receivable and the accounts payable. The accounts receivable are the ones that deal with the customers. They call or email them an invoice and make sure that the company gets paid for the load.

The accounts payable team has a few responsibilities. They are the ones that make the payments to the transportation companies. They are also responsible for filing all the necessary paperwork that goes with each of the loads. They must image the bill of lading, the transportation company’s invoice request, loading or unloading fees at the facilities, layover, and much more. In order to make a payment, they must confirm that they are paying the right company, the right price, and the right address. If they get any of these wrong, then the brokerage company can be liable to owe the transportation company more money.

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