Easy to start
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EasyMode
It’s nice to have everything you need at your fingertips - but when you add it all up, it may be a pretty scary amount of software. This is why we have created EasyMode - about half the features in the software are hidden by default (but just a click away if you want to enable them). Companies operating in just one or few locations can even use it forever.
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Free Training Sessions
Documentation is good, but rarely enough. We understand that switching to a new software solution is sometimes difficult, especially for larger companies, and we’re committed to helping you in any way we can. This is why for the enterprise subscription we don’t put hard limits on support calls. But even for small companies, you will get the support you need to set things up. Don’t hesitate to call us often until you’re up at full speed. To schedule the first demo/training call, either create an account and we’ll reach out to you, or call our colleague Livia directly: +41 79 908 86 98, livia.csapo@couriermanager.com
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Documentation
We have a large array of documentation: tutorials, videos, interactive product tours, contextual help. Tutorials and videos are in our support section: https://couriermanager.com/support
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Excel Imports
One of the first questions will be: how do I migrate my old data? We have imports for everything that’s time-consuming to add. This includes clients and prices. The enterprise subscription also includes custom import procedures. You can also export and backup your data in excel. And if you quickly need to do something with your data we don’t support yet, often you can do the same thing with an export in excel and reimport. We firmly believe that your data is yours, and should be free to manipulate at will.
Shipment management
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Basic Operations
You can do all the basic operations with shipments: create/edit/delete/copy/assign/change status, but you’ll be doing it better and easier than ever. Just to give you an example, these are some of the ways a shipment can be added in the software:
- By the client, from the web interface
- By a back office employee, from the web interface (with more options)
- Same, but a step up - even more options for call center operators
- By the client, from the mobile software (or from the company website)
- By the courier, from his mobile device
- Through the API, from the client’s software
- Through the API, using a premade plugin for ecommerce solutions (magento, shopify, woocommerce, opencart, prestashop)
- Excel import, by the client or back office employee
- Advanced excel import by an admin, with access to all the fields in the database
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Print label
Standard label contains all the details on the shipment, and of course a barcode or two. Special services and CoD are visibly marked. It includes CoD receipt if needed. It has your logo, and it can also have your client’s logo as well. We have two basic formats - one that fits more or less in an A5 (two per A4 page), and another “slim” format, nominally A6 but flexible enough to fit in a wide range of mobile or desktop label printers. If there’s anything you want changed, it is customizable - by us, or by yourself.
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Filtering and Bulk Operations
All operations can be done as bulk, simply by filtering (and we have many filters). You can also scan barcodes and perform operations on them - from both the web interface and the mobile app. The mix of many filters, bulk operations and, in a pinch, copy/pasting shipment numbers for a more complex search can get you pretty far. You can think of the filter + export combo as a very powerful reporting engine as well.
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Excel Exports
Critical sections have export/import functions, which you can use for editing raw data, reporting or backup. But there are also dedicated excel exports, which offer you lots of auxiliary info besides what’s directly in the database. You can use it for anything from checking subcontractor performance to making profitability analysis on extra services.
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Statuses and Codes
A fixed number of statuses are never enough - which is why you can define your own selection of codes, for every possible situation. You can have hundreds, we don’t mind. Codes are sub-statuses you define yourself, that you can use in any way you want. A common scenario is to tie some of them to particular statuses - for example when you have a shipment returned, you may want a list of codes that explain why that happened. You can also set up email and SMS notifications for you or your clients on certain codes.
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Groups
Nobody likes to receive their brand new hi-fi sound system with a speaker missing. Which is why you can group shipment together, and have them picked up, delivered and paid for as one - but still have them fully independent when moving them around, allowing you to load them up in separate trucks or sorting lines based on weight and capacity, with the full array of warnings to ensure that only the properly reassembled group will end up at the recipient.
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History
Everything is tracked, and everything tracked is stored forever. We don’t delete data (but you can if you want to). And speaking of having to delete data, we’re fully GDPR compliant - you can fully purge your customer’s data from the system if they request it.
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Proof of Delivery
We provide several solutions for this. One of the most commonly used is having recipients sign a printed copy of the label, then quickly snap a photo with the mobile app - the clients can see this photo in real time from their account. Another way is to bring all the signed confirmations to the office and bulk scan them, then bulk upload them in the system. Or you can take the recipient’s signature directly on the mobile device, and print a Proof of Delivery form with all the necessary info for the delivery confirmation, including the signature.
Operational
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Accountability
All the times a person has ownership on any shipment. Dispatchers can allocate them to couriers, or a courier can scan it with his phone to mark it as received by him. Same thing happens every time a package enters the hub. This way it’s nearly impossible to lose a package - you can always tell who the last person that handled it was.
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RollCarts
They’re ToDo lists for couriers. All their stops for the day, both pick-ups and deliveries, on one sheet of paper. Not that they need paper - a copy is automatically uploaded on their phone. Other than having all the information in one place, you can do a lot with a rollcart. You can scan barcodes, you can collect delivery signatures, you can print in advance all the transport invoices/receipts if you don’t have a mobile printer, and more.
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Route Optimisation
With one click you can do route optimization and sort shipments in the order that offers the shortest route and least fuel consumption. This can be done by dispatchers or by couriers themselves from the mobile app. There is also a quick shortcut to re-create an optimized rollcart if the courier got a few extra deliveries in the middle of the day. An advanced feature is auto-routing, where you have the software filter shipments based on a pickup or destination subzone, then allocate them to a team of courier servicing that zone. This way the software will create ad-hoc routes for each and load-balance the work.
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Zoning
Zones can be used for everything from pricing your shipments to sorting them. You can draw zones on a map or enter them as lists of countries/provinces/cities/zip codes. Prices are defined based on pricing zones, and you can also use them to define the area serviced by a hub, and also the individual subzones serviced by a courier and courier team. Both info will be printed on the label from the very beginning.
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Pickups
Fully featured pickups (orders) module, showing you directly the pickup spots and the volume to pick up from each. Allows you to allocate a courier for all shipments from a certain spot, and offers clients the option to auto-request pickup for new shipments, request it manually or schedule them for a later day. Pickups are separated based on pickup address, even if they originate with the same client - you’re interested in stops, not shipments.
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Sorting and routes
There are many features in the software to help with sorting, to fit the many ways each company is working - or very often the way individual agencies in a larger company work based on different conditions. If you have an automated sorting line it can be integrated to offer fully automated sorting. You can have the destination hub and subzone printed on the label. If you use a central sorting hub, you can also print the gate number. That’s very useful even if you have a sorting line, because not all shipments can make it through it, like the very heavy or the very long. This way you can easily have them taken to the same loading gate without extra fuss. You can also define in the software all your inter-city routes, and have them be scheduled automatically at certain intervals. This way you can have for example have the 5 am run to cities X, Y and Z, which is automatically created and allocated to the same courier. Scanning packages to that courier will now give you warnings if you load shipments that don’t go to X, Y or Z. It even takes into consideration if you have another run from Z to the destination city and allows it in this case. Since often drivers aren’t present when the car is being loaded, you can also have the option of scanning a car barcode tag, and have shipments allocated automatically to that car’s driver.
Customer Experience
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Client Interface
Clients are able to login directly into your website and either manually create or import their shipment from an excel file. They have a web interface optimized for companies and larger volumes, and a mobile friendly interface that allows them to quickly create an account and put an order. They also have access to their invoices and CoD settlements.
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Tracking Form
Not just your clients but anybody can track a shipment with its number. And the tracking form - along with the client login - can be integrated into your website.
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Whitelabel
The web interface itself can be shown as being part of your website. We are prepared to give a fully whitelabel product, including domain name, logo, email addresses and more.
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Notifications
You can define your own notifications on many criteria. You can set it up that you or your clients can receive emails or SMS messages on any status or code change. Email and SMS content is fully customizable.
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Client Mobile App
Larger clients and sellers will prefer to use the web interface, usually with API integration. But we also have individuals covered. We have a mobile-centric interface that can be easily accessed from your website, which allows anybody to create an account and send an expedition in a couple of minutes. This includes picking the sender and destination location on a map.
Integrations
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API for Clients
Clients can use our API to directly send shipments, interrogate prices, check status and more. We also have premade plugins for the major ecommerce platforms (Woocommerce, Magento, Prestashop, Opencart, Shopify).
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Franchisors / Subcontractors
If you want another courier company to carry your shipment, you’ll need your software to speak with theirs. We can make it happen - for many companies we already have their API implemented, or we can implement others at your choice. You also have the option to do this integration yourself or with a third party.
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Accounting
Financial info can be sent to your accounting software in a variety of ways. For some we have integrations, but for any you can have us or a third party build a thin wrapper over our generic API.
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SMS
We don’t tie you to a certain provider for the SMS notifications. If you want to connect to one you’re already using, or to one that offers better pricing in your country you can do that. Most providers use very similar API so there’s a good chance development won’t even be needed.
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Excel
No matter what reports we think you’ll want, you can always want more. Which is why all the data can be exported as excel (and usually imported as well).
Courier Mobile App
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Route optimization
Shipments are already pre-sorted in the optimum delivery order. It saves fuel, time, and is easier for the courier to stack and find them.
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Stops vs shipments
When you’re driving, you’re interested in the next stop. When you’re stopped, you want to know what shipments you have to pick up or deliver. The mobile app offers both views, including a map of your next stops.
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Scan & Deliver
Everything starts by scanning a shipment. After that the courier can easily mark it as picked up, or delivered, or assign it any of the codes you predefined.
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Bulk Operations
You don’t want to do the same thing 30 times - or 300 times in a row. Just scan a bunch of barcodes and mark them all as picked up or delivered. Or, if you prefer, use our continuous scan option, where you set up what you want to do and then just keep scanning.
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Create Shipment
Need to add a last-minute shipment? No problem, just click “add” and type the details.
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Printing
Waybills, receipts, CoD receipts, daily reports.. Just add a small, inexpensive bluetooth pocket printer, and you can have it all.
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Navigating
Just click “navigate” and have google maps take you directly to the destination. Couple with Route Optimizations for a truly high tech solution.
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Track your couriers
You have a history of every courier’s actions, including real time position, previous route and a log of all his actions.
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And more
We keep developing our mobile app a lot, so forgive us if we don’t keep this list current. It’s most likely already outdated.
Mobile Devices
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For Couriers
Phones are the easiest and cheapest solution, but there are plenty of nicer toys out there - devices that include Android, laser scanner, camera, phone, big battery, or even a mobile printer into one rugged, long lasting device. Our recommendation for couriers is to use Android phones (cheap, ubiquitous and easy to replace). For the routes where they need lots of scanning you may add a small portable bluetooth scanner. But if you can afford better devices - we’re not going to stop you! We also have support for mobile printers (compatible with ZPL and Esc/POS). This covers a wide range of price and quality, so the decision is yours. You can even go printer-less, and have couriers pre-print invoices and receipts - or email them on the spot.
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For Warehouse
For the warehouse it has to be Android scanners - they’ll likely scan thousands of barcodes per day. No phone can do that, and you probably want to invest in something more durable too. But if you happen to have a thousand scanners on another platform, you don’t have to abandon them. We already have legacy support for Mobile Windows 6.5, and we have an API that allows development of software on other platforms.
Tracking
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Real time tracking of couriers on map
You can see anytime where everybody is, where they’ve been during the day (or week) and where their allocated stops are.
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Real time tracking of shipment status
Everything that happens on the mobile app you can see instantly. What shipments are delivered, and more importantly, aren’t delivered yet.
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Proof of Delivery
There are several options for PoD. Have your couriers take a picture of the signed waybill. Or have the recipient sign the rollcart. Or, best of all, have them sign directly on the phone, and the software will generate a full printable PoD form. All of these are instantly available in the client’s account.
Invoicing
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Invoice Generation
We manage the full invoice generation process, including auto invoicing on regular intervals. The client will receive the invoice by email (or see it in his account), and can also download the detailed annex of shipments invoiced.
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Flexible Pricing
Won’t get into details - it would be a long text. Short version is: you’re not likely to have a problem defining your prices.
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Email Invoices
Not only does it create the invoice by itself, but you don’t even have to print it (unless you want to, of course). Just one more click and the client receives it by email - along with a full list of the invoiced shipment.
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Invoice on-the-go
Couriers can create and print the invoice for a shipment themselves. If you allow them, they can also receive payment for older invoices - and all these cash amounts are tracked carefully in the Courier Settlements menu.
Cash on Delivery
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Courier Settlements
For every courier the software tracks all the amounts they have to turn in at the end of the day. For each it creates a “settlement” - a printable document with all the amounts and shipment involved. This includes CoD and transport prices charged directly by the courier. You can mix cash with POS receipts, and can have couriers deposit the cash and bring a bank statement receipt. All that matters is for the numbers to balance at the end of the day. There is also a system to track transfers from agencies/subcontractors to headquarters.
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Client Settlements
You can easily track the CoD amounts you need to send to the clients. The system is optimized for large numbers of clients, including bulk settlement (with numerous filters) and excel exports for the actual bank transfers. The system tracks bank and cash CoDs separately, and makes managing large numbers of cash returns easily. Each payment can be tracked and confirmed.
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Deduct Transport Cost from CoD
In some cases, you want to simply deduct the transport costs from the CoD amount you pay to our clients. The software allows you to do this easily and safely.
Security
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Rights
Most security issues come from your own employees. Which is why you can define strict roles for them, and let them see and do only what you want. Same goes for your clients. You can also use this to show each person the simplest software interface needed to do their job.
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Logs
We track everything. You can either check out the Logs menu, or in many cases you’ll see a separate link in each page to see the logs.
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Backups
We backup everything in several locations, including two different countries. And speaking of countries, we’re operating under European Union law, which through GDPR makes sure you and your client’s data is safe and well cared for.
Internationalization
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Time Zones and Currencies
You can define time zones, currency, distance and weight units of measure when you set up your account. And if there’s anything in the printed forms you want us to change - we can. Or, if you prefer, we can teach you how to do it yourself.
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Languages
Currently the software is available in English, French, Romanian, German, Hungarian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese (both Simplified and Traditional), Hindi and Urdu, plus a lot more languages available through integrated google translate. If yours isn’t on the list, we can add it.