Our Rateware Rating Engine interfaces our software package to SMC’s Rateware product to seamlessly provide access to all of the class tariffs that SMC has available. You purchase Rateware and the tariffs from SMC and then just point customers to the different tariffs as part of the customer rating profile that you set up in our software.

Our Billing and Rating programs automatically access the Rateware tariffs as part of it’s decision making process when choosing the rates that will appear on the freight bill or rate quote.

The Dispatch and Equipment Control systems will enable your operations department to track and control all aspects of Freight, Equipment, and Driver movements.

Through the use of various inquiry screens, you will know the location and status of all freight shipments and equipment. Enroute information will provide origin, destination, ETA, and more. Terminals can view inbound loads, the freight on those trailers and various other information. Dispatching Control is provided for both line haul and P&D loads.

Available Equipment screens show both incoming and "at terminal" status for assigning resources to upcoming movements.

The System will enable your Operations Department to efficiently control the movement of freight, drivers and equipment. Up-to date information will be available instantly throughout your freight system.

Use the Pickup Management module to control pickups. Pickups can be entered from phone calls, EDI or from the Web. Pickups can be assigned to drivers and automatically sent to the driver via his mobile communication device, if you have the ability. Once the pickup is complete a skeleton freight bill can be automatically created from information received from the driver via his mobile communication device or by phone.

If you have forklift scales, you will want to use the Weights and Inspections module. This module accepts downloads from the scales and matches that data up to pros and automatically makes adjustments to those pros. The adjusted pros can be sent to a rate queue for further review. Reports and Inquiry screens give you access to historical data.

Where Freight Billing ends, Revenue Accounting begins. When billing is closed out, revenue is posted to accounts receivable. All further activity (cash receipts, adjustments, collections, etc) is under the control of Revenue Accounting. While Freight Billing is primarily in the domain of operations, Revenue Accounting provides the necessary programs for keeping track of the revenue generated.

Accounts receivable functions include a full collections system. Past due billing, statements, dunning letters and credit limit monitoring are just a few of the tools available to your collections department. Your collections department will also be able to track and follow up on all collections activity including functions that the system runs and phone calls that your collectors make.

Accurate, efficient processing of I/L payables is a must when you are dealing with multiple types of Connecting Lines. Our software allows three types of partnerships – the traditional interline arrangement, carriers that act as your cartage agent and carriers that you act as a cartage agent for.

Our versatile split management file gives you the ability to automatically calculate the split agreements that you’ve agreed to with your partners. The splits, by being calculated on every corrected version of the freight bill, gives you the assurance that corrections do not go unnoticed and will flow through to the payables system.

With the Connecting Line Payables interfaced to Freight Billing, settling with your partners becomes a simple, daily routine, with most of the work reduced to a simple, clerical data entry function. Only exceptions, which are pointed out by the computer, require more detailed attention.

Proper Claim handling can prevent many problems. Claims must be acknowledged promptly, followed up, and settled in a timely fashion. By entering Claims initially and updating the computer, staying on top of the situation is easily accomplished. Reporting allows management at anytime to obtain an accurate, up-to-date picture of their Claim liabilities and handling.

Claims entry is a simple process and acknowledgements are printed based on your design. If the Claim is approved, the Claim information is automatically forwarded to the AP system and when AP cuts a check the check information updates the Claims system with the payment information.

Filing state fuel reports involves compiling a vast quantity of data - a task often postponed by more immediate concerns during the quarter. Eventually a rush job, often inaccurate, and quite possibly involving late fees, is performed to catch-up. With this module, Fuel & Mileage entries can easily be entered daily by a data entry clerk. At the end of the month and/or quarter, merely run the reports, providing a detailed audit trail in the eventuality of an audit.

The Accounts Payables system manages all aspects of the A/P environment. The A/P module tracks payables from original entry, through payment, posting to the General Ledger, and bank reconciliation. By scheduling payment dates and classifying types of vendors using the due date feature, cash flow management is greatly improved.

The General Ledger system can be run as a stand alone system by journaling all entries, or it can interface with our other sub-systems (ie: Accounts Payable), for automatic posting. Powerful formatting features allow your own custom financial statements. Budgets and Profit & Loss statements can all be produced on a terminal level or company wide.

There are many translation packages available on the market today. In all standalone systems you are required to re-enter the data into their format then they transmit the data in the required standard format. These standalone systems also require someone on your staff to become the “EDI expert”. Understanding the standard and everyone’s interpretation of that standard can become a full time job.

At Tell Systems, we already have that knowledge and we can manage your EDI implementation for you.

The Tell System's EDI package gives you an advantage that you cannot get from a standalone translation package. With our software, you choose an option or the system automatically from the menu and our EDI package takes the data you have already entered into the system, converts it into the proper format and sends the data to the proper party. And, at the same time, picks up any data destined to you. The EDI can be sent over a modem line or over the internet using FTP. Both methods are transparent to the user. The EDI transmission can also be setup to automatically transmit based on a schedule that you design.

At Tell Systems we call it “Driver Settlements” but we’ve also heard the function referred to as Owner Operator Settlements or Driver Payables. In essence, our Driver Settlements module provides you with the means to automatically calculate a Driver’s compensation for work performed based on many different calculation methods.

Once a Driver’s compensation amount is determined records accumulate in the Driver’s file awaiting Settlement or payment to the Driver. You can pay a single Driver or all Drivers for any period of time. There is no need to clear the previous week’s pay before entering data for the new week. Standard checks (no taxes taken out) can be produced. If Driver’s are paid through your payroll system a Settlement sheet will print with no check. A detailed Settlement sheet is provided as backup to the Driver’s check. The Driver who receives a standard check will get a 1099 at the end of the year.

Automatic and one time deductions may be set up by Driver including limits so that a Driver who, for example, receives a $500 advance can be set up for a $50 weekly deduction which will automatically stop when the $500 limit has been reached.

Our Tell/Imaging solution is fully integrated with our software. Any PC attached to the network has the ability to display any Image whether it is the bill of lading or delivery receipt or any other document you choose to Image. Documents and the index to those documents is stored on the iSeries where it is safest and easiest to backup and retrieve.

The Tell/Imaging begins with the scanning of the documents into the imaging system. At one account where all scanning is done at the home office, they scan 15,000 Images a day using one employee and one scan station. Scanning may be done in one location or in many using low or high speed scanners or fax machines.

Centralized billing can be enabled by scanning the bills of lading at each pick up location. By doing this the bill of lading is available and ready to be keyed into our freight billing screen and can be dispatched on a large monitor side by side with the Image of the bill of lading. For customers who do centralized billing but don’t want to display Images, we can automatically print a copy of the BL upon receipt in the imaging system.

Now that the bills of lading are in the system, the rate and freight auditing is quick and accurate. Just go into the rate queue and select a queue to be audited. You can display the bill of lading Image to help with the auditing.

Bills of lading and delivery receipts are available from everywhere in the system that you can display the freight bill screen, such as tracing and accounts receivable inquiry. You can display the Image, print it on your printer or any system printer, fax it to any fax machine, or save a copy of the Image so that you can email it.

We also have a program that will select and FTP a group of Images to either a customer or a connecting line.

Rendition printing or country club billing can save you an abundance of time. The system automatically collates the billing statement, invoice copy and any required attachments into one bundle. Just take them off of the printer and put it in an envelope. The customer master file contains the attachment requirements. The sooner your bills are out, the sooner you’ll get paid.

Our Internet Connection product is fully integrated with our software. We add secure options to your web site that give your authorized customers the ability to Interact with the Tell/LTL database through the Internet.

We customize our screens to match the look and feel of your current web site. If you don’t already have a web site, we can create one for you.

When you set an authorized user, you can define which options your customer will have access to. The options we currently offer are as follows:

• Shipment Tracking
• Claims Submission
• Pickup Request
• POD, B/L Document Viewing/printing (requires imaging system)
• Freight Bill Register
• Rate Quoter
• Service Reports
• Standard delivery time Inquiry

Satellite Communications to the trucks has been a product that was predominately used in the truckload industry, but, we are seeing it more and more in the LTL environment. To meet this need we’ve developed an Interface between our Dispatch and Customer service products to seamlessly integrate the information transferred between the driver and our system. We’ve currently Interfaced with Qualcomm and Cheetah.

Some examples of the functions we’ve integrated are below:

• A pick up is taken over the phone, through EDI or from the internet. When the dispatcher assigns the pickup to a driver the driver receives an electronic message in his truck with the pickup information.
• When the pickup is completed, the driver responds with the pro numbers and pickup information. This information can update the pickup and simultaneously create a skeleton freight bill.
• Arrival and departure times from stops are sent by the driver and automatically updates the equipment history and dispatch screen.
• When a driver makes a delivery and confirms the delivery in his truck, that information is automatically transferred into our tracing system.
• When an OS&D situation occurs the driver can send information about the situation that will automatically download to the status history of the pro and simultaneously notify your OS&D department of the exception.

Download of skeleton bills from the AS400 to the Cheetah system then, after routing, upload back to the AS400 the loads created by Cheetah.

We’ve interfaced our software to a number of other products. Some of those are described below.

• We use the Acom Ezprint forms overlay software to create the forms used for printing delivery receipts, invoices and other forms. This software allows us to design any number of forms so that you can eliminate the use of pre-printed forms.
• Interface is available to Rand McNally MileMaker to be used for mileage rating and/or Driver Settlements
• Interface is available to PC Miler to be used for mileage rating and/or Driver Settlements.