NVOCC Agency & Shipping Agency Software for Multiple Principals

A shipping or NVOCC agency does the line's work in its port: it quotes, takes bookings, issues BLs, releases delivery orders, tracks the boxes and collects the money, then accounts for all of it to the principal. When an agency represents several principals, every one of them has its own tariff, BL format, local charges and reporting expectations. The usual result is one spreadsheet per principal and a painful statement of account every month.

BlueLogis AX is designed for exactly this. You configure each principal once, with its own rates, charges and documents, and the team works in one system. For a deeper look at the operating model, read NVOCC agency software: managing multiple principals.

Agents raise rate requests to the line by customer, container type, size, status and SOC/COC, with valid-from and valid-to dates. Once the line approves, the tariff is published and the agency is notified by email. Bookings then pick up the standard tariff or approved rate automatically, respect the principal's restrictions by country, port, commodity and container type, and draw on load-port slot allocation by voyage.

BLs are created from the booking in the liner-specific format, with draft, non-negotiable, original and surrender PDFs. Prepaid freight is collected through the export invoice before the BL is released, so the agency is never holding the line's cargo documents against unpaid freight.

On the import side, AX sends discharge port intimation for arriving BLs, transfers the manifest from the POL office to the POD office, and keeps manifest corrections under control. Detention and demurrage free days are set by port, container type, customer, BL and container. The delivery order is issued only after finance has checked the to-collect charges, and detention is re-calculated if the box stays out after DO issue.

Agency local charges are calculated automatically by port, so the fixed charges for each port are applied the same way on every BL instead of depending on someone remembering them. Container inventory covers depot and port mapping, container events and moves, global location-wise inventory, bulk or automatic load and discharge updates, and SOC and COC boxes on separate workflows with BLOCK and UNBLOCK statuses.

Finance runs on the same data: proforma, import and export invoices in multiple currencies, customer, voyage or invoice-wise exchange rates, automatic posting of invoices and receipts, GST or VAT, AR/AP matching and full books.

AX supports port EDI formats and keeps customer management separate for agency operations: leads, quotes, prospects, credit limits and sales analysis by salesperson, revenue, voyage and TEUs. For Indian agencies, tax invoices, credit notes and debit notes can be registered on the government e-invoice portal with a QR code (see NVOCC software for India). Gulf agencies get VAT and multi-currency invoicing (see NVOCC software for the GCC).

Plenty of agencies also forward cargo for their own customers, and some go on to run an NVOCC service. BlueLogis AX shares its platform with BlueLogis FX for forwarding and BlueLogis NX for the principal side, so the same customer master, the same login and the same centralised finance cover all three. Each business keeps its own finance book, which keeps principal money clearly apart from your own forwarding margin.

Also operating as a principal? See NVOCC principal software, or compare options on our NVOCC software page.

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.