Freight Broker Software for a 1 to 5 Desk Brokerage: What to Run First and What Waits for a TMS

This is for a brokerage that already moves freight. You have customers, a carrier list and a way of working that fits one or two people. Now you are adding desks, and the question is which software to buy next and whether a TMS is due yet. Experience on one desk does not answer that, because the problems that justify a TMS mostly appear when a second and third person start working the same freight.

What jobs does the software have to cover at 1 to 5 desks?

Start from the jobs, not from product categories. Every load you broker passes through the same six:

• Finding capacity. Load boards, matching platforms and your own list of carriers that have run for you before. Our overview of load boards and matching platforms covers how brokers use each.
• Checking the carrier. Authority, insurance and identity before you hand off the load, as in how to vet a carrier before you hand off a load.
• Booking and paperwork. The carrier agreement, the rate confirmation and the bill of lading.
• Watching the load. Where it is, and whether it will make the appointment.
• Billing and paying. Invoicing the shipper, collecting the POD and paying the carrier.
• Keeping the record. The transaction record federal rules require for each load.

The last job is the one that ties the others together. Under 49 CFR 371.3, a broker keeps a record of each transaction showing the consignor, the originating carrier’s name, address and registration number, the bill of lading or freight bill number, the compensation received and who paid it, and any freight charges collected and the date the carrier was paid. The records are kept for three years, and each party to the transaction has the right to review its record. Whatever you run, at one desk or five, that record has to come out of it.

What should you run first?

In this order, because each one either protects a load or is needed to get paid for it:

1. A load board account and your own carrier list. Before a TMS, the carrier list is your most valuable file: who ran which lane, at what rate, and how it went. Keep it in one place every desk can open, not in each person’s inbox.
2. A vetting check on every new carrier. This is the step a new desk is most likely to skip under time pressure, and the one that costs the most when skipped. Make it a rule before a rate confirmation goes out, not a habit.
3. Accounting that issues invoices and records carrier payments. Two of the items in the 371.3 record, what you were paid and when you paid the carrier, live here. If they live in a spreadsheet instead, the record is only as good as the last person who updated it.
4. Tracking that starts without a TMS. Check calls grow with every load, and every desk you add makes more of them. A tool that needs only a shipment and the driver’s phone number can run from the first desk and keep running after you buy a TMS.
5. One shared load record. At one desk this can be a spreadsheet. At two or more, it has to be one shared sheet with one row per load and the same columns for everyone: customer, carrier MC number, BOL number, customer rate, carrier rate, status, invoice date, carrier paid date.

What does a TMS do that these tools do not?

A TMS (transportation management system) holds each load as one record from quote to payment: customer, carrier, both rates, documents, status, invoice and carrier pay. Its value is that each fact is typed once and every desk sees the same load. The rate confirmation, the invoice and the 371.3 record all come from that one record instead of being rebuilt from email.

What a TMS does not do by itself is find trucks, vet carriers or put a phone on the load. Those stay with load boards, vetting tools and tracking, now connected to the TMS instead of sitting next to it. So buying a TMS does not replace the first four items on the list above. It replaces the fifth, and the copying between all of them.

When is a TMS due?

Not at a load count. A brokerage with steady lanes and few customers can stay on separate tools longer than one with many small accounts. Watch for these instead:

• The same load is typed into several places. The sheet, the rate confirmation, the invoice and the tracking tool each get the same addresses and numbers by hand.
• Desks cannot see each other’s freight. A second broker has to ask what the first one booked, or two people call the same carrier about different loads.
• Invoices wait on rebuilding the load. Billing means digging through email threads to find the final rate, the accessorials and the POD.
• Margin per customer or lane takes an afternoon. The numbers exist, but only after someone merges several sheets.
• A customer asks for EDI or API tenders. Shippers that send loads electronically expect a system on your side to receive them.
• Last year’s record is hard to pull. Producing the 371.3 record for an old load, or answering a carrier’s request to review it, takes a search instead of a lookup.

One of these on its own is usually a process problem that a better shared sheet fixes. When several show up together and each new desk makes them worse, the TMS is due.

What changes when the TMS arrives?

Most of the stack stays. What changes is where the load lives and how the tools hand data to each other:

A typical order of adoption, not a setup any vendor prescribes. Which connections exist depends on the tools you pick.

How do you buy now without boxing in the TMS later?

Every tool you buy before the TMS will either connect to it or be replaced by it. Ask each vendor the same questions before you sign:

• Can I export everything? Loads, carriers, contacts and documents, in a standard format, at no extra charge. Data you cannot take out is the most expensive part of switching later.
• Does it work without a TMS, and with the ones I might buy? Ask for the list of integrations, and ask what each one actually syncs.
• What is the contract term? How long, how much notice to cancel, and what happens to your data after you leave.
• Is it priced per seat or per load? Per seat rises with every desk you add, whether loads grow or not; per load follows your volume. Our breakdown of per-load vs per-seat pricing works through the difference.
• How long until a new desk is working in it? At five desks, training time per person is a real cost.

Where does LBOARD fit?

LBOARD is load tracking built for independent brokers, one layer of the stack rather than a TMS. You enter a shipment and the driver’s phone number, no TMS needed, and shippers can follow the load on a shareable tracking link instead of calling. It works standalone or inside your TMS, with optional API integrations for McLeod, Turvo, Tai, Rose Rocket and Ascend when you are ready. So it can start on your first desk and stay when the TMS arrives.

The first 25 loads are free with all features and no contract. To compare it with other tracking tools, see our list of the best load tracking software for freight brokers.

Frequently asked questions

What software does a small freight brokerage need?

A load board and a carrier list to find trucks, a vetting check on every new carrier, documents for rate confirmations, accounting for invoices and carrier payments, a tracking tool for loads in transit, and one shared record of every load. A TMS can replace the shared record and the copying between tools later.

Does a new freight broker need a TMS?

Not from the first load. A TMS pays off when the same load is typed into several tools, when desks cannot see each other’s freight, or when invoicing waits on rebuilding loads from email. Until then, separate tools that can export their data work.

What records does a freight broker have to keep?

Under 49 CFR 371.3, a record of each transaction showing the consignor, the originating carrier’s name, address and registration number, the bill of lading or freight bill number, the broker’s compensation and payer, and any freight charges collected with the date the carrier was paid. Records are kept for three years.