Load tender

The tender is where a load begins. A shipper’s transportation management system, or its traffic manager’s email, sends the load to the first provider in the routing guide for that lane: pickup, delivery, dates, equipment, commodity, weight, references. The provider accepts or rejects, often within a set number of hours. Rejected tenders go to the next provider, and a lane that gets rejected repeatedly goes to the spot market.

Larger shippers tender electronically (the EDI 204 transaction), and the broker’s TMS creates the load from it automatically. Smaller shippers tender by email or a phone call, and someone at the brokerage keys the load in from whatever arrived, which is where a mis-typed appointment time or PO number enters the system.

The rate confirmation the broker then sends its carrier repeats the tender’s facts and adds the carrier’s rate. Any difference between the two (a delivery date the broker changed, a weight that grew) is the broker’s to reconcile, and a cancelled tender after the carrier has been dispatched becomes a truck-ordered-not-used charge.

Tender acceptance rates are watched on both sides: shippers rank providers by them, and brokers track them to see which lanes their pricing is losing.