Everything is covered until one thing is not.
A brokerage runs on carrier relationships, current capacity and a phone. The system usually holds the load and none of the three things that decide whether it moves.
Thirty minutes · no predetermined package
What an uninstrumented board feels like.
A load goes uncovered and the first sign is a phone call from the shipper.
Carrier capacity lives in a dispatcher's memory and leaves with them.
Rates are negotiated by phone and recorded, if at all, after the fact.
The same carrier is called by two dispatchers for two loads in the same hour.
Insurance certificates and authority expire and nobody is warned before they do.
Margin per load is known at invoicing, which is after every decision that determined it.
What you are probably running, and what constrains it.
The typical stack
What the rules require
Six questions before changing anything.
How a load actually moves.
The tender
from a shipperLane, equipment, timing and a rate expectation — often against two other brokers.
Coverage
carrier and rateWhere the relationship pays, and where a board search is the fallback rather than the plan.
Vetting
authority and insuranceVerified before tender, and monitored between bookings rather than defaultChecked once.
In transit
tracking and exceptionsWhere an exception has to reach a person rather than sit in a portal.
Delivery and settlement
and the marginPOD, invoice and carrier pay — which is when most brokerages first learn what the load was worth.
What brokers and carriers ask.
What should a CRM for freight brokers do that a TMS does not?
Hold the carrier relationship, current capacity and the rate history. The TMS holds the load and the paperwork; the part that decides whether a load covers usually lives in a dispatcher's head.
How do you stop loads going uncovered?
By making time-to-pickup a monitored state rather than something a dispatcher notices. An uncovered load two hours out should raise its own hand.
Can carrier capacity be captured systematically?
Yes — lanes run, equipment, recent rates and responsiveness on the carrier record. It turns a personal relationship into an operational asset.
How should carrier vetting be handled?
Continuously. Authority and insurance expire between bookings, so verification has to be monitoring rather than a check performed once.
Does this replace McLeod or Aljex?
No. The TMS stays authoritative for the load. What sits around it is where coverage and margin are actually decided.
How do you track margin per load in time to act?
By recording the buy rate at agreement rather than at settlement, so margin is a live figure rather than a retrospective one.
What about tracking and exceptions?
Aggregated from whatever each carrier provides, with exceptions routed to a person. A tracking portal nobody watches is not tracking.
Can this work for asset-based carriers as well as brokers?
Yes, though the constraint differs — carriers manage drivers and equipment rather than coverage, and the routing logic changes accordingly.
What does a project like this cost?
It scales with integration count — TMS, load boards, vetting, tracking — rather than with load volume.