Freight Forwarding Overview

About this guide

Audience: Freight company owners, Sales/Ops managers, system admins evaluating or deploying the solution.
Reading time: ~8 minutes.
Outcome: Understand which transport modes are supported, the role of each user group, and which modules to install for your business needs.

The Freight Forwarding solution in Viindoo is built specifically for freight forwarder companies, covering the complete operational cycle — from quotation and carrier booking, to shipment tracking, charge management, and customer invoicing — on a single platform.

Without a dedicated freight system, forwarders typically rely on a patchwork of Excel spreadsheets, email threads and separate accounting tools. Rate lookups happen manually. Profit per shipment is calculated after the fact, often after the invoice has already gone out. The Viindoo Freight Forwarding modules replace that patchwork with a single source of truth that every role — Sales, Ops, Docs, and Accounting — works from simultaneously.

Minimum installation requirements

To use the core features, install:

All other modules listed below are optional and installed on top, depending on transport mode, automation needs, or dashboard requirements.

Supported Transport Modes

  • Sea Freight: Full Container Load (FCL) and Less than Container Load (LCL) — including LCL consolidation

  • Air Freight: Direct (straight shipment) and Consolidation (Less than Container Air Freight, LCAF — multiple HAWBs under one MAWB)

  • Road Freight: Full Truckload (FTL), cross-border trucking

User Roles (Actors)

The solution is designed around the actual roles within a freight forwarder:

  • Sales / Pricing: Create freight quotations, look up rate cards, track profitability by shipment.

  • Booking Officer: Create and confirm carrier bookings, manage cutoff deadlines — Container Yard Cutoff (CY Cutoff), Shipping Instruction Cutoff (SI Cutoff), Verified Gross Mass Cutoff (VGM Cutoff).

  • Operations Staff: Create shipments, track containers and cargo, prepare transport documents.

  • Accounting: Issue customer invoices, process vendor bills, review per-shipment profit.

  • Management: Monitor overall profitability, KPIs by lane, carrier, and sales rep.

Each module section below lists the relevant actors who work with that module.

Module Reference

Select modules based on your business operations. All foundation dependencies install automatically when you install the primary module.

Core Business Modules

Module

Description

Install when

viin_logistics

Multi-leg shipment model — the foundation for the entire system

Required for every freight forwarder

viin_freight_management

Freight operations: booking, charges, profitability, invoicing

Required — this is the operational core

viin_freight_consol

LCL consolidation: house/master shipment, CFS tracking, cost allocation

You handle LCL (consolidating multiple small shipments into one container)

viin_freight_air

Air freight: House Air Waybill (HAWB) / Master Air Waybill (MAWB), automatic chargeable weight

You operate air freight (direct)

viin_freight_air_consol

Air consolidation (LCAF): multiple HAWBs under one MAWB

You do air consolidation — grouping multiple shippers under one master AWB

viin_freight_road

Road freight: border crossings, vehicle manifests, delivery notes

You operate road freight or cross-border trucking

viin_freight_sale

Sales integration: quotation → shipment, profitability linked to sales order

You use sales orders as the starting point instead of creating shipments manually

viin_freight_sale_onbehalf

Track advance payments made on behalf of customers (pass-through charges)

Your forwarder pre-pays overseas charges (port fees, customs duties) and recovers them from the customer

viin_freight_sale_purchase

Link subcontract purchase orders (POs) to shipment bookings

You regularly subcontract trucking, agents, or handling vendors

viin_freight_project

Assign operational tasks per shipment + include labor cost in profitability

You want to manage operational tasks and include labor cost in per-shipment margins

When to choose which transport module

  • Start with viin_logistics + viin_freight_management regardless of mode.

  • Add viin_freight_consol only if you consolidate LCL — it adds complexity not needed for pure FCL operations.

  • viin_freight_air and viin_freight_air_consol are independent of the sea modules; a mixed-mode forwarder installs both sets.

  • If you do not use Viindoo Sales (you create shipments directly), viin_freight_sale is not required.

Add-on / Extension Modules

Module

Description

Install when

viin_spreadsheet_dashboard_freight

Spreadsheet dashboard — real-time operational KPIs (active shipments, pending bookings, today’s tasks)

Management wants a real-time overview dashboard for Ops

viin_freight_document_parsing

Automatic document reading: upload PDF/image, LLM Vision reads and fills shipment data

You want to reduce manual data entry from booking confirmations, Shipping Instructions (SI), Bills of Lading (B/L), or arrival notices

viin_document_freight

Shipment document management: SI, Draft B/L, HAWB, Delivery Order (D/O) with version control — Enterprise

You need document lifecycle management from SI through D/O with version history

viin_logistics_account

Accounting integration: analytic accounts per shipment, real-time margin

Accounting needs to track profit/loss simultaneously with official bookkeeping

viin_logistics_cargo_template

Configure cargo presets to create shipments quickly

You handle recurring shipments with a fixed template (same cargo type, same customer)

Note

Beyond the modules above, the system relies on several technical foundation modules (routing, package types, sales team access rights) that install automatically as dependencies — no need to select them separately.

How This Connects: A Typical Sea FCL Scenario

To make the module list concrete, here is how a single sea FCL export shipment flows through the system at Hai Long Logistics handling a shipment for Saigon Tech Export:

  1. Pricing enters the ONE rate for VNHPH → USLAX 40HC in viin_freight_management rate cards.

  2. Sales creates a quotation in viin_freight_sale, selects the sailing schedule, checks margin, and sends to Saigon Tech Export.

  3. On confirmation, a shipment record (viin_logistics) is automatically created.

  4. Ops / Booking confirms the carrier booking, updates CY Cutoff, SI Cutoff, and VGM Cutoff.

  5. Ops updates container milestones: Empty Pickup → Stuffing → Gate-in → Loaded on Vessel.

  6. Accounting creates the customer invoice and vendor bill from the shipment’s Charges tab.

  7. Management reads gross profit on the shipment once the vendor bill is posted.

Each step above corresponds to a separate how-to guide listed in the See Also section below.

See also

Key workflow guides

Tip

After reading this page: if your company is deploying sea freight first, go to Sea Freight to select the correct FCL/LCL export/import flow. Then read the document management, container milestones, and charges guides as your operations require them.