Rating Method 1 - API Integration With Carriers

 VIA® Integrates with many carriers out of box to provide a seamless link between your  VIA® system and their TMS. Through the API connection, you can request and receive rates for your movements as you create quotes and orders.  There are a few prerequisits that you will need to look at before you can start receiving rates in  VIA®:

1. Your carrier must be integrated with  VIA® and support an API connection to provide rates

2. You must have an account setup with your integrated carrier

3. You must setup any additional margins or markups in order to properly calculate the cost to the customer

4. The carrier board must be configured as the rating board from within the administration screen

Let's look at each of these steps in a little more detail:

Requirement 1 - Carrier Must Support API Integration for Rating

In order to pull rates back from your carrier  VIA® needs to be able to connect to them using an API connection. Below are a list of some of the carriers that  VIA® connects to as of the most recent documentation update:

It is possible that additional carriers have been added to this list since it was originally published.  To see if the carrier you want to integrate with is currently available open a carrier type card and in the carrier details tab click on the MC number field. If there is an MC number for your specific carrier then they are connected to  VIA® with API. If your carrier is not on this list speak to your Tranztec contact about creating an API connection to your carrier.

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If the carrier is listed in this MC listing then you will be able to establish an API connection with them. 

Requirement 2 - Existing Account Required

Each individual carrier requires users to provide credentials before they will create the API connection. The requirements of the carrier are outlined on the integration button that appears when an MC number is selected in the carrier screen. These fields change depending on the carrier that you select and their requirements. If you need to create an account with your carrier contact them directly and ask for the information that is requested in the carrier integration screen.

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Requirement 3 - Setup Margins or Markups 

Once you have taken a carrier card and completed the integration screen setup you can start defining what you will do with those rates. There are a couple options you can setup a margin calculation or a markup calculation. Let's look at each of these options in more detail. Margin will be the revenue you make after paying the cost of goods sold (or in our case the cost of transportation services). Markup shows how much more your selling price will be on top of the amount that the service cost you. You can find the fields in the carrier cards under the carrier settings tab:

For the purpose of explaining how these fields work we will take a quote and see the various behaviors as the changes are applied to the carrier card setting. Here is the quote with no settings updated:

Carrier Minimum Margin -  This value will alter the margin that appears on the screen to match a specific number or percentage. For example, if you want to always make at least $200.00 on every load regardless of what the carrier returns you can put that in this field and make sure $ is selected. When you refresh the quote it will appear as follows. Note that the carrier cost is still $146.33; however, you are now adding a $200.00 margin onto the quote.

This will work with percentages as well. Let's say that we want to apply a 25% margin. We know that the cost of service will be $146.33 and we want to apply a 25% margin. Here is the calculation to figure out the margin. Take the margin percentage you want to make (in our case 25%) and subtract it from 100 giving us 75%. Another way to write 75% is .75 and for the rest of the calculation we are going to work with the number written like that. Now, take your cost to ship (in our example the cost is $146.33) and divide it by our .75. This will give you the margin $195.10; in our case 146.33/(100/(100-25)) or written

cost of service / (100 / (100 - desired margin))

Carrier Default Margin - This field will add on either a dollar amount or a percentage to the cost that comes in from the carrier. For example, if we set the default margin to $50.00 the quote will update and add $50.00 onto the cost of $146.33. NOTE that for this example we have set the minimum back to $0.00

This field can also be a percentage. Let's say we want to add 25% onto the cost instead of a flat $50.00:

This default margin field will work in conjunction with the Carrier Minimum Margin field to add a margin onto the amounts returned from the carrier. If for example, the minimum was set to $25.00 and the default margin was 25% then the system will look for the greater amount to charge. In this example, the amount of the  default margin will exceed the minimum (25% margin would be $48.78) and the default will be applied instead of the minimum:

Carrier Cost Markup - The value that you enter into this field will be directly applied to the carrier cost as opposed to showing as an addition to the cost that comes across from the carrier. For example, if you set the markup to $50.00 and refresh the quote then the cost will change from $146.33 to $196.33.

This field can also be created as a percentage. For example, if you set the markup as 50% then the field will look similar to below. The system will run the following calculation: 146.33 + 50% = 219.50

Requirement 4 - Configuring your Carrier Board to be Used in the Quotes and Orders Boards

Once you have setup your carriers and established and margins and markups you can link your carrier board to your quotes and orders boards. To do this you will need to have access to the  VIA® administration screen. Click on your username at the top right section of  VIA® and select admin. If you don't see the admin menu item then you are not setup as an administrator and you will have to contact your  VIA® system administrator to arrange access.

From the main administrator screen click on boards on the left side of the screen. Your main screen will look similar to your home screen; however you may have more boards available to you when you are looking at this view. Scroll down to locate your board or use the search field at the top right side of the screen to find the board you want to link your rating too (this will be a quote/order or segment board that you are looking for). Click on the board to open it.

Once the board is open, scroll down to the bottom of the options screen until you see the Quote Settings. You should see fields similar to the screen shot below:

The first option defines if you want the system to only provide quotes on preferred carriers or all carriers. preferred carriers are defined in the Bill To tab in the client card. When you are viewing the bill to tab you will see an additional button on the right side of the card called Carrier Pref. If you do not set preferred carriers on your bill to codes then select All Carriers as this option. In the next field you will list any carrier boards that you want to use to generate the rate quote for. You can select more than one carrier board if you have multiple. If you want to allow the system to return blanket pricing then select Allow in the final field on the right.