ConNote Price Lists

ConNote’s price list feature is a powerful tool for automating the process of charging for freight. While simple to use in the day-to-day ConNote workflow, setting it up can be daunting – especially for first-time users! To make the process a breeze, we’ve created a “How-To”, which walks you through all the steps of creating a price list so you can streamline your freight admin even more!

Overview & definitions

To briefly summarise ConNote’s price lists:

• A price list is a collection of rates between destinations for various freight types or rate types. It also includes fixed charges and rates, such as dangerous goods, demurrage, and forklift pickup/delivery, as well as information such as cubic weight factor, used for charging freight by volume instead of weight.
• A rate records the $/kg price for freight for a specific destination pair and rate type. It can also record price-per-item (PPI) charges.
• Price-per-item is a different way of charging freight – instead of charging by weight, you charge per item. Examples may include pallets, shipping containers – but it’s entirely up to you!
• You can link price lists to customers to allow ConNote to automatically calculate the freight charges for their consignments.
• You can duplicate price lists, for example to create a discounted rate for a repeat customer.
• You can use the price list updater tool to perform large changes, such as increasing some or all rates/charges by a percentage or dollar amount. These can be applied to as many or few price lists as you want, making admin a breeze!

Let’s take a closer look

In more detail, a price list is a collection of rates & charges that are applied to freight travelling from A to B. Each “point” is called a destination, and each “from-to” pair can have multiple rates for different categories of freight – known as “rate types”. Destinations and rate types are also shared between price lists, so you can set them up once, and use them in as many price lists as you need.

For example, freight being shipped from Perth to Darwin may attract a rate of $1/kg, but if it needs to be shipped in a refrigerated trailer, the cost will increase significantly. Rate types allow you to handle these scenarios with minimal hassle.

Each set of destinations is unique; that is to say that you can have one rate for shipping from Perth to Darwin, and another rate for Darwin to Perth. This allows you to factor in surcharges and discounts according to your business requirements – and you only have to do the math once!

Price lists also record general fees and charges, as well as other information used to determine pricing. Examples of fees/charges include a basic charge applied to every consignment, consignment minimum, pickup/delivery, and dangerous goods. Demurrage can be specified as an hourly rate, along with included hours for full and part trailer loads.

Price lists in action

Whether your freight is entered manually from paper dockets, received by email or EDI, or booked online via the ConNote Customer Portal, ConNote can automatically calculate the price of each consignment according to the rules you set. For example, freight for a customer can be automatically priced according to their custom price list as soon as it is entered. Items are priced using the rates you set, according to their weight (or volume multiplied by the cubic weight factor – whichever is greater), or according to the relevant price-per-item, overriding weight/volume based pricing.

We will cover ConNote’s invoicing in greater detail in a later “How-to”, but as far as price lists are concerned, the calculated prices are carried throughout the system automatically to save you time and preventing transcription errors.

Conclusion

To wrap up, ConNote’s price lists are a powerful time-saving feature. Gain the freedom to delegate and grow your business by getting the numbers from your head into the system and let ConNote do the heavy lifting!

Let us know if there is anything you would like explained, or if you would like support setting things up for your business. Get in touch via phone or our website  – we’re always looking to help and make your day better!