NVOCC Principal Software for Container Lines

An NVOCC principal owns the commercial risk. It signs the customer contracts, buys the slots, issues BLs under its own name, owns or leases the containers and carries the cost when a box sits idle or comes back damaged. Its agents sell and operate in other ports, but the principal has to see every voyage, every box and every agent's account in one place.

That is a different job from running an agency, which is covered by BlueLogis AX. BlueLogis NX is built for the line itself. For background on how the roles differ, see our NVOCC software overview.

NX registers each rate enquiry and the quotation against it. Negotiation between customer, agent and head office is kept with full history, and an accepted quotation becomes a customer contract directly. Contracts are held by route section, can be revalidated, and keep a complete amendment history. Bookings are then auto-rated from the governing contract.

Freight tariffs cover container base rates by route and port, including IMDG, OOG and over-weight boxes, BL base rates, and charges by location, route, route category and contract section. OOG tariffs can be set by over-height, over-width, over-length and slot kill, and dangerous cargo restrictions are managed by IMDG code.

Bookings cover carrier and merchant haulage, empty and laden, hazardous, OOG and special cargo. They can be merged, split, re-routed or amended, with auto-rating on every version. Services and voyages are scheduled in the system, with voyage estimation, yield management and balance lists by voyage and service. Pick-up, haulage, customs, consolidation and delivery legs can sit on the same booking for inland-to-inland visibility.

Documentation runs from shipping instruction and BL draft confirmation to the load list, then the Bill of Lading or sea waybill in your own BL format. Merge, split and switch BLs are supported, along with controlled manifest corrections and POL to POD manifest transfer. Prepaid freight is collected before the BL is released.

Detention is where lines quietly lose money. In NX, demurrage and detention tariffs support exceptions and a waiver request workflow, so every waiver has an approver. Free days are set by port, container type, customer, BL and container, charges are calculated and invoiced automatically every day, and the delivery order is released only when the to-collect charges are cleared. The result posts straight to the principal's account.

NX maintains the agents' ledger and the principal's ledger separately and supports an agent network with port-wise agent mapping, agent SOA and the principal tariff. Freight, detention and customer invoices can be raised in multiple currencies with exchange rates by customer, voyage or invoice, with GST or VAT treatment and credit-limit controls. Voyage operating costs roll up into voyage-wise P&L, alongside the trial balance, general ledger, P&L, balance sheet, SOA and AR/AP matching.

Import and export EDI and XML message formats and port EDI exchange are available. Access is role-based, with user, group and access management and an audit log of security-relevant events. AI reading of BL and cargo documents into booking and documentation screens is available as an option.

Many lines have a forwarding arm or run their own agency in the home port. BlueLogis NX shares one platform with BlueLogis FX and BlueLogis AX, so a forwarding job raised in FX can become a booking against the line's own slots in NX without re-keying the customer or cargo. Masters and users are shared, finance is centralised, and each business keeps its own finance book so voyage results and forwarding margin stay separate.

BlueLogis is sold as a monthly subscription, with a 7-day free trial so your team can test it with real jobs before committing.

Ask us which plan fits your mix of forwarding, NVOCC and agency work. Start the free trial on cloud.bluelogis.app or book a demo.