Carrier Integration · Houston, TX

Every carrier, one integration, zero re-keying.

Rating in one browser tab, the label in another, tracking in a third, and the freight invoice reconciled never. We wire your carriers — parcel, LTL, truckload, and the rest — into the systems you already run, so a shipment gets rated, tendered, labeled, tracked, and audited without anyone copying a number between screens.

The carrier stack is where the re-keying hides

Nobody plans to run shipping on browser tabs. It starts with one carrier's portal because the volume was small, adds a second when a customer mandates their account, and a third when the LTL contract changes. Two years later, rating means checking three websites, tracking means somebody's morning spreadsheet, and the freight invoices get paid as billed because nobody has time to check them.

The fix is not another portal. It's one integration layer between your systems — WMS, TMS, ERP, webstore — and every carrier you use, speaking API where the carrier is modern and EDI where it isn't. Your team sees one rating call, one label flow, one tracking feed. Which carrier answered is an implementation detail.

What we build

  • Carrier API rating and rate shopping with your negotiated rates and routing rules
  • Address validation, label generation, manifesting, and end-of-day close
  • Load tendering and accept/decline over EDI 204/990 or carrier APIs
  • Tracking via 214, webhooks, and visibility platforms — with ETAs and exception alerts
  • Proof-of-delivery capture attached to the order, not an inbox
  • Freight invoice (210) audit against quoted rates, with overcharges flagged before payment
  • Accessorial and detention capture at the moment it happens
  • Failover, retries, and queueing so one carrier outage doesn't stop your dock
  • Trading-partner documents on the customer side of the same shipment — the EDI & B2B integration practice, sharing one pipeline
  • Cost, service, and on-time reporting across carriers via the 3PL reporting layer

Shop before you ship

Rating every eligible carrier per shipment — against your contracts, not list rates — is usually the fastest payback in the project.

Audit before you pay

Matching every freight invoice to the rate quoted at tender time turns billing surprises into flagged exceptions.

One interface, many carriers

Your systems call one rating and tendering API. Adding carrier number nine is configuration, not another project.

Watched, not babysat

Every feed is monitored. A tender that goes unanswered or a tracking feed that goes quiet pages you before the customer calls.

Modes

What "integrated" means, mode by mode

Parcel and truckload barely speak the same language. The layer we build hides that from your team — but the work underneath is mode-specific.

Parcel

UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL, and the regionals — rating with your negotiated rates, address validation, label generation, manifesting, end-of-day close, and tracking webhooks instead of polling.

LTL

Rating against your tariffs (SMC3 or carrier APIs), freight-class and dimension handling, BOL generation, pickup requests, and the accessorial capture that keeps the invoice from being a surprise.

Truckload & brokered

Load tendering and accept/decline over EDI 204/990 or API, check calls replaced by 214 statuses or ELD telematics, and POD documents attached to the load instead of somebody's inbox.

Ocean, air & intermodal

Booking confirmations, container and milestone tracking through visibility platforms, and arrival notices reconciled against what was actually ordered and shipped.

Document types · Carrier EDI

The transaction sets on the carrier side

Parcel carriers replaced these with REST and webhooks; LTL and truckload still run on them daily. Where a carrier offers both, we take the API — and keep the EDI path for the carriers that don't.

Set Document Direction What it does
204 Motor Carrier Load Tender Outbound Offer the load to the carrier — lane, stops, weight, and requirements.
990 Response to Load Tender Inbound The carrier accepts or declines, so dispatch can move on.
214 Shipment Status Inbound Pickup, in-transit, and delivery milestones feeding tracking and ETAs.
210 Freight Invoice Inbound What the carrier billed — the input to audit and settlement.
211 Bill of Lading Outbound Shipment detail to the carrier ahead of pickup.
216 Pickup Notification Outbound Tell the carrier when and where to show up.
997 Functional Acknowledgement Both Proof the file arrived — the first thing checked when a tender goes quiet.

Directions shown from the shipper or 3PL side. The customer-facing sets — 850, 856, 940/945, and the rest — live on the EDI & B2B integration page.

How the rollout runs

One carrier proves it, the rest reuse it

  1. 1

    Inventory the carriers

    Every carrier, contract, account number, and connection you have — plus where the hours and overcharges actually go today. That baseline is what the payback gets measured against.

  2. 2

    Build the layer, pilot one

    The rating, tendering, and tracking interface goes in against your highest-volume carrier first. Real shipments, one lane, small enough to watch closely.

  3. 3

    Add carriers as config

    Each additional carrier plugs into the same interface — API or EDI as the carrier dictates — reusing the tests, the rules, and the runbook.

  4. 4

    Turn on the audit

    With tenders and rates flowing through one place, invoice audit is a comparison, not a project. Monitoring and alerting stay on everything, permanently.

Carriers & platforms

Connections we build against

Using a carrier or platform not listed? If it has an API, an EDI mailbox, or even just a portal, it's the same work.

UPS FedEx USPS DHL Express Regional parcel carriers FedEx Freight XPO Old Dominion Estes Saia R+L Carriers ABF / ArcBest TForce Freight SMC3 RateWare project44 FourKites EasyPost ShipEngine Shippo ShipStation Banyan Technology DAT Truckstop Samsara EDI 204 / 990 / 214 / 210 AS2 / SFTP / VAN REST & webhooks

Listed as systems we integrate with. Names are the property of their owners and imply no partnership, certification, or endorsement.

Questions we get

Straight answers

Which carriers can you integrate?

Any carrier that exposes an API, speaks EDI, or at worst has a portal we can automate against. In practice that covers the parcel majors, the national and regional LTL carriers, truckload carriers and brokers over 204/990/214, and the aggregators — EasyPost, ShipEngine, project44, and similar — when one connection to many carriers is the better trade.

API or EDI — which will we end up on?

Both, almost always. Parcel carriers are API-first; LTL is a mix; truckload still runs heavily on EDI. We put one rating-and-tendering interface in front of your systems and let each carrier connect however it actually connects, so your WMS, TMS, and ERP never care which is which.

Can you rate-shop across carriers with our negotiated rates?

Yes — that is usually the fastest payback in the whole project. We load your contract rates and rules, query every eligible carrier for the shipment, and return the cheapest option that meets the service level, with the decision logged so you can defend it later.

Do you audit freight invoices?

Every 210 or invoice file gets matched against the rate you were quoted at tender time — base, fuel, and accessorials — with duplicates and re-bills flagged before they hit accounting. The recovered overcharges are the line item that usually pays for the integration.

Our TMS already connects to carriers. What would you add?

The carriers and flows it doesn't cover: the regional carrier your TMS has no connector for, rating from inside your ERP or customer portal, invoice audit the TMS doesn't do, and the monitoring that notices a feed went quiet. We extend what you own before proposing to replace anything.

What happens when a carrier's API goes down?

The integration queues and retries with backoff, fails over to another eligible carrier where your routing rules allow it, and alerts a channel you actually watch — with the carrier, shipment, and error attached. A carrier outage should cost you minutes of margin, not a day of shipping.

How many tabs does it take to ship one order?

Count them, then tell us. The assessment is free, and the integration plan is yours either way.

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