X-press Freight Forwarders
Carolina, Puerto Rico
Receives dry goods from the United States and transports them throughout Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Challenge:
X-press Freight was running MS-DOS applications on a Novell network. They had no email and no website. Their main transportation facility and offices are in Puerto Rico. Their satellite office in Jacksonville, FL connected to Puerto Rico via a dial-up modem. They were developing business relationships with Payless Shoes, Pepboys, K-Mart, Sherwin-Williams and many other US based business but had no way to do electronic commerce with them. The local government in Puerto Rico was moving towards electronic import tax filing, and X-press had no way of doing that. English and Spanish were needed for business transactions.
Mission:
- Install a Microsoft Windows® network with email.
- Develop technologies to ensure X-press could do commerce between key US based clients.
- Work with the local government to set up electronic import tax filings.
- Develop freight bill tracking software for both offices to use.
- Develop electronic communications between the main office in Puerto Rico and the satellite office in Jacksonville, FL.
- Give them a web presence so clients could track shipments.
- Write bilingual web pages and reports where needed.
Our Solutions:
Our first step was to get them into the 21st Century by giving them a Microsoft Windows® network with email, file sharing, printer sharing, etc. The next step was to build freight bill tracking software on a Microsoft SQL Server® database that would handle LTL and large commercial shipments.
Freight bill pre-entry in the US
- Beginning of an order is put into the system by their Jacksonville, FL office.
- SEDs are filed.
- Bookings with ocean carriers are coordinated.
- Containers are loaded in several ports in the US. Multiple freight bills are loaded in each container. This information is transferred to the Puerto Rico office.
Freight bill completion in Puerto Rico
- Complete any missing information in each freight bill.
- Notify the consignees when the shipment will arrive.
- File or collect taxes on behalf of the shipper on consignee before the shipment arrives.
Dispatching and Delivery
- Daily routes and deliveries are set up for 30 trucks in Puerto Rico.
- Deliveries are made.
- Signed Proofs-of-Delivery are scanned into the system for later retrieval by a customer service rep or the client.
B2B Freight Tracking
- Key clients such as Payless Shoes, Pepboys, K-Mart and Sherwin-Williams ship merchandise to Puerto Rico.
- Electronically receive advanced shipment notices.
- Use bar code scanners to receive merchandise in various warehouses.
- Set up dispatching and delivery.
- Use bar code scanners to load merchandise in trucks for delivery.
- Electronically file tax information on behalf of commercial clients with Puerto Rico government.
x-pressfreight.com
Website where shippers and consignees can log in to:
- Get an instant rate quote.
- Enter a pickup request.
- View tracking history of each freight bill.
- View freight bill history.
- Check invoice balances.
