90 terms from order management, transport, warehousing, yards, EDI and freight finance, written in plain English by the team that builds Kargentra. Where a word is often used loosely, the definition says exactly what it is not.
Distinctions that matter
A charge for a service beyond the base line-haul rate, such as detention, redelivery, layover, a tail-lift or extra stops. Accessorials should be agreed in advance and backed by evidence. Kargentra records each one as its own commercial fact against the shipment, never folded silently into the base rate.
Freight Finance & BillingThe time an event really happened, taken from an observation such as a driver’s arrival, a gate scan or a signed delivery. Actual is a different fact from the requested, proposed, committed and estimated times, and on-time performance should compare the actual with the commitment, never with an estimate.
Control Tower & Live TrackingA message from a supplier declaring what is about to arrive against a purchase order: items, quantities, lots, expiry dates and handling units. The receiving warehouse matches what arrives against the notice and records any shortage, excess, wrong item or damage on the line.
Supplier PortalA recommended next step prepared by an AI assistant from cited record facts. A proposal is not an authoritative logistics action. In Kargentra it changes nothing until a person with the right permission approves it, and the approval is written to the audit trail.
Ask KargentraReserving specific available stock for a specific demand line, so it cannot be promised or picked for anything else. Expected, received, available and allocated are four different quantities, and reporting them as one number is how warehouses promise stock they do not have.
Warehouse ManagementNaming the driver, vehicle and trailer, or the carrier, for a movement. Assignment is not readiness, release or execution: a trip can be fully assigned and still be blocked by missing documents, insufficient driver hours or goods that are not yet staged.
Transportation ManagementA tamper-evident record of who did what, when and with which authority. Kargentra writes business and administrative actions to a tenant-scoped, hash-chained audit record carrying the actor, their membership and a correlation id, so any change can be traced and verified later.
Trust & SecurityThe quantity of an item that can still be promised to new demand: on-hand stock minus what is already allocated, held or committed elsewhere. Promising against availability-to-promise instead of raw on-hand stock prevents the same goods being sold twice across channels or sites.
Order ManagementThe decision to give a movement to a particular carrier at a particular price, usually after comparing quotes. An award is not a tender acceptance, a booking or a dispatch; each of those is a later and separate commitment, and a good system records the reason for every award.
Carrier Network & PortalThe transport document recording the goods handed to a carrier, their quantity and condition, and the terms of carriage; it also acts as a receipt. Kargentra versions the bill of lading against shipment freight and warns when freight changes after the latest version was issued.
Transportation ManagementThe verdict that a delivered shipment has passed every check needed to charge for it: an accepted order, delivery evidence, resolved exceptions, and a governed charge with its rate. Billing ready is separate from evidence complete, because a fully evidenced delivery can still carry a blocking issue. In Kargentra, sixteen named checks decide it.
Guide: Freight audit and billing readiness, explainedA carrier’s confirmed commitment to perform a movement at an agreed time, often tied to facility appointments. A booking follows tender acceptance but is a distinct state: a carrier can accept a tender while the booking is still requested or not yet confirmed.
Carrier Network & PortalA company that physically moves freight with its own or contracted vehicles and drivers. Carriers are distinct from freight brokers, who arrange transport without operating it, and from private fleets that a shipper runs for its own goods.
Kargentra for Carriers & FleetsThe set of requirements a carrier must meet before it can be used, such as operating authority, insurance cover, equipment and safety standing, each with a source and an expiry date. Qualification should be checked again at dispatch, not only once at onboarding.
Carrier Network & PortalChoosing carton sizes, and which items go into which carton, for an outbound order from verified product dimensions and weights, so goods ship in the fewest well-fitting cartons. It only works when item dimensions are authoritative rather than estimated. Kargentra recommends cartons by rule from verified dimensions.
Warehouse ManagementThe delivery date or window the business has formally agreed with the customer. It differs from the requested date (what the customer asked for), the proposed date (what was offered) and the ETA (the current estimate). Kargentra allows exactly one current commitment per order.
Order ManagementCombining several shipments into one load to use capacity well and reduce cost, for example grouping orders bound for the same region. Consolidation is a planning decision: the shipments remain distinct records with their own references and evidence inside the load.
Transportation ManagementA view across orders, warehouses and transport that shows what needs a person, why, and who owns it, with risk measured against commitments. A useful control tower links each alert to an action and its evidence, rather than only plotting positions on a map.
Guide: What is a logistics control tower?Moving received goods directly from the inbound dock to outbound demand with little or no storage in between. In a well-governed cross-dock only matched inbound receipts flow through, so the system never creates inventory that did not physically exist.
Warehouse ManagementCounting a subset of locations or items on a rolling schedule instead of a full stocktake. The counted quantity is compared with the expected one, and any variance is corrected through a governed adjustment with a reason, so stock accuracy is maintained without closing the warehouse.
Warehouse ManagementOne visit to a stop to hand over goods, with an outcome for each unit: delivered, short, refused, damaged or not attempted. An arrival is not a delivery attempt, and a failed attempt leads to a reattempt or a reschedule rather than a completed delivery.
Guide: Electronic proof of delivery (ePOD): a practical guideA charge for keeping a container or rail wagon beyond the free time allowed at a port or terminal. It is often confused with detention, which applies to equipment, vehicles or drivers held beyond free time outside the terminal or at a customer’s facility.
A charge for holding a carrier’s truck, driver or trailer beyond the agreed free time at a pickup or delivery facility. A defensible detention charge needs recorded check-in and release times and a stated free-time policy, not an estimate made after the fact.
Yard ManagementThe governed decision that a trip may start, taken once readiness checks pass: documents, insurance, driver hours, equipment and warehouse staging. Release is separate from assignment, from the driver’s acknowledgement and from the actual pickup.
Transportation ManagementA formal disagreement about money, such as a carrier bill above the tendered rate or a customer contesting an invoice line. A governed dispute has a reason, evidence, proposals from each side and an explicit outcome, instead of living in an email thread.
Freight Finance & BillingThe time a vehicle or trailer spends at a facility, from gate arrival to departure. Long dwell signals dock congestion or slow service and is the basis for detention charges, so it should be measured from recorded timestamps rather than estimates.
Yard ManagementThe structured exchange of business documents between companies’ systems in an agreed standard, such as ANSI X12 in North America or EDIFACT internationally. EDI replaces emailed files and manual keying for tenders, status updates and invoices between trading partners. Kargentra’s EDI intake is the X12 204 load tender.
IntegrationsThe ANSI X12 Motor Carrier Load Tender: a shipper’s offer of a load to a carrier, with stops, references, equipment and freight details. Kargentra validates inbound 204 files deterministically, keeps each one as evidence and turns valid tenders into transport orders.
IntegrationsThe ANSI X12 Motor Carrier Freight Details and Invoice, which a carrier sends to bill for a shipment. Matching each freight invoice against the tendered rate and the service actually performed is the core of freight audit.
Guide: Freight audit and billing readiness, explainedThe ANSI X12 Transportation Carrier Shipment Status Message, used by a carrier to report milestones such as pickup, in transit, arrival and delivery. A status message is an observation from one source, to be reconciled with other evidence rather than accepted as final.
The ANSI X12 Response to a Load Tender, in which a carrier accepts or declines a 204. Acceptance in a 990 is a tender response: it is not yet a confirmed booking, and it is certainly not a dispatch.
A device connected to a vehicle’s engine that records driving time and duty status for hours-of-service compliance. Kargentra receives duty-status and position facts from ELD and telematics connections and uses them in route feasibility checks before dispatch.
Transportation ManagementWhat a tenant has bought and switched on, such as a product or module. Entitlement is not permission: a tenant can be entitled to a module while a given person has no permission to use it, and neither grants access to a record outside that person’s scope.
Trust & SecurityProof of delivery captured digitally at the stop: per-unit outcomes, photos, a signature and a timestamp, bound to the delivery attempt. Good ePOD keeps working without signal and is reviewed by operations before it counts as evidence.
Guide: Electronic proof of delivery (ePOD): a practical guideThe current best estimate of when a vehicle will reach a stop. An ETA moves as conditions change; it is not the committed date and it is not the actual arrival. Delivery risk is the gap between the ETA and the commitment.
Control Tower & Live TrackingThe state in which all required delivery evidence, such as accepted proof of delivery and documents, has been recorded for a shipment. Evidence complete is necessary before billing, but it is not the same as billing ready.
Guide: Freight audit and billing readiness, explainedA deviation from plan that needs a person: delivery risk, silent tracking, insufficient driver hours, route deviation or missing proof of delivery. A governed exception has an owner, evidence and recorded attempts, and its recovery is verified by the resulting state, not by a button press.
Control Tower & Live TrackingA stock rotation rule that allocates the units with the earliest expiry date first, used for food, medicines and other dated goods. It depends on lot and expiry being captured accurately at receipt.
Warehouse ManagementChecking each carrier bill against what was tendered and what was actually performed, before it is approved. Variances are investigated and, where needed, disputed. Freight audit protects margin and catches duplicate or unagreed charges.
Guide: Freight audit and billing readiness, explainedA company that arranges transport between shippers and carriers without operating the vehicles, earning the margin between the sell price to the shipper and the buy price from the carrier.
Kargentra for Freight BrokersA shipment that uses a whole trailer, or is paid for as if it does, moving directly from origin to destination without sharing space with other shippers’ freight. Compare LTL, where freight shares trailers and moves through terminals.
Guide: What is a transportation management system (TMS)?The work that turns an accepted order into delivered goods: choosing the facility, allocating stock, picking, packing, staging and handing over to transport. One order can be fulfilled by several shipments from different facilities.
Order ManagementRecording a vehicle’s arrival at a facility and matching the observed driver, tractor and trailer against the expected appointment. A mismatch is a discrepancy to resolve before the vehicle is sent to a dock door.
Yard ManagementSell price minus actual cost for a shipment or job. In freight, the expected margin at quote time and the realised margin after the carrier bill can differ, so both should be recorded separately, and per currency.
Freight Finance & BillingA physical unit moved as one, such as a carton, pallet or roll cage, usually identified by a label. Handling units carry their contents and owner, so they can be received, moved and loaded without being broken down.
Warehouse ManagementA governed stop placed on an order or on stock. An order hold refuses new steps, such as acceptance or dispatch release, without unwinding work already under way. A stock hold keeps goods out of available until an authorised person releases it.
Order ManagementRegulations that limit how long commercial drivers may drive and work before resting. Dispatch should check a driver’s remaining hours from duty records before release, and unknown hours should never be treated as enough.
Driver AppMoving freight in the same container across two or more modes, typically road and rail or road and sea, without handling the goods themselves when the mode changes.
Guide: What is a transportation management system (TMS)?The party that owns stock held in a warehouse. In third-party logistics, owner is part of the identity of items, balances and handling units, so two clients can store the same SKU or barcode in one building without their stock mixing.
Kargentra for Third-Party Logistics (3PL)Assembling separate components into one sellable unit, such as a gift set or a spares kit, inside the warehouse. Each kitting run consumes exact components and produces traceable output stock, and it is usually charged as a value-added service.
Warehouse ManagementA recurring origin-to-destination pair, such as one distribution centre to one region, used to organise carrier contracts, routing guides, rates and performance measurement.
Transportation ManagementThe final leg of delivery to the end customer or store, usually with many stops per route. It is where delivery attempts, failed deliveries and proof of delivery matter most.
Driver AppThe freight planned to travel together on one vehicle or container, built from one or more shipments. A load plan is not an order, a shipment or a trip: it describes what goes together, while the trip describes how and when it moves.
Transportation ManagementA formal offer of a load to a carrier at stated terms, with a deadline to answer. The carrier accepts or declines, and a tender that is not answered in time lapses. Accepting a tender commits the carrier to the stated amount, not yet to a booked time.
Carrier Network & PortalA unique identifier printed on a label and attached to a handling unit, such as a pallet or carton, so its contents can be tracked through receipt, putaway, picking and shipping with a single scan.
Warehouse ManagementA shipment too small to fill a trailer, carried alongside other shippers’ freight and priced by weight, dimensions and freight class. LTL moves through carrier terminals and usually takes longer than a full truckload.
Guide: What is a transportation management system (TMS)?A recorded point in a shipment’s life, such as picked up, arrived or delivered. Planned milestones, observed events and the authoritative milestone are different facts: an observation from one source does not overwrite the authoritative record by itself.
Control Tower & Live TrackingAn architecture in which many customers, or tenants, share one platform while their data stays isolated. Kargentra enforces tenant isolation in the application and, as a last line of defence, with forced row-level security in the database.
Trust & SecurityA price cap on a lane or movement. In a routing guide, tender recovery offers the load to the next eligible carrier only while the price stays within the not-to-exceed cap, and holds with a named reason when it would not.
Transportation ManagementSoftware that captures customer demand, validates it, promises delivery against available stock and governs holds, changes and cancellations through to fulfilment. It decides what is owed to whom, and by when.
Order ManagementA customer’s request for goods or services: what, how much, where and by when. An order is not a shipment. One order can produce several shipments, and one shipment can carry lines from several orders.
Guide: OMS vs WMS vs TMS: what each system doesA service measure counting deliveries that arrived within the committed window with the full agreed quantity. OTIF is only meaningful when it states which date it measures against and counts actual delivery outcomes, not estimates.
Control Tower & Live TrackingThe right of a specific person, through their role, to perform a specific action, such as releasing a hold. Kargentra names the exact permission behind every control a person cannot use, instead of hiding the control without explanation.
Trust & SecurityThe evidence that goods were handed over: who received them, when, in what quantity and condition, usually with a signature and photos. Proof of delivery is evidence, not completion, and accepted proof is required before a delivery can become billing ready.
Guide: Electronic proof of delivery (ePOD): a practical guideIn Kargentra, the tenant’s choice of who runs each of nine order-to-delivery stages: Kargentra, an external system connected through governed exchange, an external system updated by hand, or not applicable. New orders follow the active route version.
Platform overviewA delivery date or window offered to the customer in response to their requested date, usually after checking availability. It becomes the committed date only when the customer accepts it.
Order ManagementA buyer’s formal order to a supplier, stating items, quantities, prices and dates. In inbound logistics, the purchase order is what an advance shipping notice declares against and what receiving is matched to.
Supplier PortalMoving received goods from the receiving area to a storage location, ideally one recommended from verified capacity. Stock is not truly available for allocation until putaway has been confirmed.
Warehouse ManagementA carrier’s or customer’s agreed prices for given lanes, modes, weights or services. Versioned rate cards let every expected cost and every charge show which rule version produced it.
Freight Finance & BillingThe set of records a person may see or act on, such as their own customer account, facility or carrier relationship. Scope is checked separately from entitlement and permission, so even the right role cannot reach a record outside its scope.
Trust & SecurityMoving stock from reserve storage to pick faces, or from a distribution centre to stores, so demand can be met. Demand-driven replenishment triggers the move when a pick face runs short, and picking waits until the refill is physically complete.
Warehouse ManagementThe delivery date or window the customer asked for. It is a fact about the request, not a promise, and it should be kept even after a different date has been proposed and committed.
Order ManagementThe flow of goods back from customers or stores: returns, claims, repairs and disposal. Good reverse logistics inspects every arrival before it becomes available stock and records liability and remedy for each case.
Kargentra for Distribution & RetailA per-lane list of preferred carriers in order, with rules such as a not-to-exceed cap and an attempt limit. When a tender is declined or lapses, the routing guide decides which carrier is offered the load next.
Transportation ManagementA database feature that restricts which rows a query can read or write based on the current context, such as the tenant. Forced row-level security applies even to the application’s own runtime role, so a defect higher up cannot expose another tenant’s data.
Trust & SecurityA defined quantity of goods moving from one origin to one destination for a customer, with its own references, documents and evidence. A shipment is not the order that created it, the load it travels in or the trip that carries it.
Guide: OMS vs WMS vs TMS: what each system doesDeciding which storage location or pick face each item should occupy, based on verified capacity, item characteristics and demand. Good slotting shortens pick paths and prevents overfilled locations.
Warehouse ManagementA one-off price a carrier offers for a specific movement, outside any contracted rate. Spot quotes should be compared on qualification, service fit and track record as well as price, and kept as history after one is awarded.
Kargentra for Freight BrokersPlacing picked and packed goods in a designated lane near the outbound dock, ready to load. A staged shipment is warehouse ready, which is not the same as dispatch ready.
Warehouse ManagementAn additional invoice that charges an amount agreed after the original was issued, for example following a dispute. Issued invoices are never edited; they are corrected by a supplemental invoice, a debit note or a credit note, each traced to its source.
Freight Finance & BillingVehicle-mounted systems that report position, speed, engine data and sometimes duty status. Telematics positions are one tracking source among several, and each position should be labelled with its source and its freshness.
Control Tower & Live TrackingA provider that runs warehousing, transport or both on behalf of other companies. 3PL operations need client ownership on every record, per-client rules, client-facing visibility and billing for the services actually performed.
Kargentra for Third-Party Logistics (3PL)Software that plans, sources, executes and closes freight movements: load and route planning, carrier selection and tendering, dispatch, tracking, exception handling, freight audit and the handoff to billing.
Guide: What is a transportation management system (TMS)?The run of a vehicle and driver through a sequence of stops, carrying one or more loads. A trip is assigned, released and executed, and it is distinct from the order, the shipment and the load plan.
Transportation ManagementWarehouse work beyond storage and handling, such as kitting, labelling, repacking or inspection. Each service performed should be recorded as an event, so it can be charged to the right client and defended with evidence.
Warehouse ManagementThe state in which an outbound shipment has been picked, packed and staged and can be handed to transport. Warehouse ready is not dispatch ready: the trip may still be waiting for a driver, documents or release.
Warehouse ManagementReleasing a group of orders together, often by carrier cut-off or route, and picking them in coordinated waves. The alternative is continuous or waveless release, where work flows to the floor as soon as it is ready.
Warehouse ManagementAn HTTP message one system sends to another when something happens, such as an order changing status. Signed webhooks let the receiver verify the sender, and a governed replay handles deliveries that failed.
IntegrationsSoftware that runs the physical work of a warehouse: receiving, inspection, putaway, inventory, replenishment, picking, packing, staging and shipping, with an exact record of what is where and who owns it.
Warehouse ManagementSoftware that controls the space between the gate and the dock: appointments, gate check-in, trailer location, dock door assignment, service and release, and the dwell time behind detention charges.
Yard ManagementThe committed date is the delivery date or window the business formally agreed with the customer, and it only changes through a governed re-promise. The ETA is the current estimate of arrival, and it moves as conditions change. Delivery risk is the gap between the two. Measuring on-time performance against the ETA instead of the commitment hides every late delivery.
An EDI 204 is the ANSI X12 Motor Carrier Load Tender, the standard message a shipper uses to offer a load to a carrier, with stops, references, equipment and freight details. The carrier usually answers with a 990. Kargentra validates inbound 204 files, keeps each one as immutable evidence, never applies the same file twice and turns valid tenders into transport orders.
An advance shipping notice tells the receiving warehouse what a supplier has dispatched against a purchase order: items, quantities, lots, expiry dates and handling units. It lets the warehouse plan dock time and labour, and it is the basis of the three-way match between what was ordered, what was declared and what was actually received.
An order is what the customer asked for. A shipment is a quantity of goods moving from one origin to one destination. A load is what is planned to travel together on one vehicle, and a trip is the run that vehicle makes through its stops. Keeping them as separate records lets one order split across shipments without corrupting anything.
Billing ready means a delivered shipment has passed every check needed to charge for it: the order was accepted, delivery evidence is accepted, exceptions are resolved and a governed charge with its rate exists. Kargentra evaluates sixteen named checks. It is stricter than evidence complete, because a delivery can have every document and still be blocked by an open exception or a missing rate.
Every distinction above is enforced in the product. The platform overview shows how they fit on one record, and the guides go deeper on the systems behind them.
A working session on your lanes, your sites and your hand-offs: order to invoice, on one record.