Question 1

How do I manage transport orders without losing track in Excel and phone calls?

Accepted Answer

Excel and paper tracking work until volume catches up — then orders get missed, double-booked or planned around a driver's memory. The fix is a transport management system (TMS) built for carriers, where every order, address, customer, document and status lives on one screen instead of across spreadsheets and notebooks. Planlogi is designed for exactly this transition: it imports your existing customer and address data from Excel, runs entirely in the cloud, and a small dispatcher team is usually live within one hour. The goal isn't more tooling — it's removing the moments where information falls through.

Question 2

What's the fastest way to create a CMR / consignment note for a shipment?

Accepted Answer

Manually filling a paper CMR usually takes 9–15 minutes per consignment. With an eCMR-enabled TMS like Planlogi, the consignment note is generated automatically from the order data — parties, addresses, cargo, time windows, notes — and a dispatcher can issue a completed eCMR in around 45 seconds. The eCMR is then signed digitally by the receiver via the driver app at delivery, archived in the cloud, and travels with the invoice automatically. No retyping, no missing fields, no waiting two weeks for the paper copy to come back to the office.

Question 3

How can a small haulier or transport company handle more shipments without hiring more dispatchers?

Accepted Answer

Growth-blocked carriers usually hit the same ceiling: planning, re-planning, document-chasing and invoicing soak up the entire dispatcher's day. The way through is to remove the manual work, not add more people. Planlogi customers regularly grow capacity by 20–25% with the same team — Tarvi Transport added 25% more weekly stops with one dispatcher and three trucks, and Rain Transport cut shipment management from 30 minutes to 1 minute per order. The shift comes from automated route planning, the driver app reporting status back in real time, and one-click invoicing from completed eCMRs.

Question 4

What is a TMS and does a small carrier with 5–20 trucks actually need one?

Accepted Answer

A transport management system (TMS) is the software a carrier uses to run dispatch, planning, tracking, eCMR, driver communication and invoicing in one place — replacing Excel, paper CMRs and constant phone calls. Most enterprise TMS platforms are over-built and over-priced for small carriers, which is why owner-operated hauliers tend to stay on paper. Planlogi is purpose-built for carriers in the 5–100 truck range: simple to learn, fast to roll out (a one-hour kickoff for small teams), and priced to scale with usage rather than fleet size.

Question 5

How do I get invoices out faster when paper CMRs keep coming back late and half-filled?

Accepted Answer

Paper-CMR-dependent invoicing is one of the heaviest drains on a carrier's cash flow: signed paper comes back from drivers with two-week lag, half-completed, and someone has to retype everything before billing. Replacing paper with eCMR closes that gap entirely. With Planlogi, the consignment note is signed digitally on the driver's tablet at delivery and is in the cloud the same second. Once every stop in a trip is marked complete, the dispatcher generates invoices in one click — Tarvi Transport saves 250 hours of invoicing time per year this way.

Question 6

What is eCMR and is it legally valid for cross-border transport in the EU?

Accepted Answer

eCMR is the digital version of the CMR consignment note used in international road freight. It is legally valid under the e-CMR Protocol of the CMR Convention and, in the EU, is being made the cross-border standard by the eFTI regulation, which is enforced in waves between August 2026 and July 2027. Planlogi's eCMR is compliant with both national requirements and the EU eFTI standard, so it's accepted for cross-border transport today and ready for full enforcement when it lands.

Question 7

How do I plan and re-plan trips when stops keep changing during the day?

Accepted Answer

The biggest source of dispatcher stress is mid-day re-planning — a customer changes a window, a driver hits traffic, a new urgent pick-up comes in. On paper or in Excel, that means rebuilding the trip in your head and calling the driver. In Planlogi, the dispatcher drags stops on the map to reorder them, adds or removes orders, and the route recalculates automatically. The driver's app updates immediately — no phone call needed. The whole trip stays on one screen: stop list on the left, map on the right.

Question 8

What is the best transport management software for small and mid-size hauliers in Europe?

Accepted Answer

For carriers in the 5–100 truck range, the best TMS is one purpose-built for the carrier workflow (not for shippers, 3PLs or warehouses), priced per usage rather than per truck, fast to roll out, and natively eCMR-compliant under the EU eFTI standard. Planlogi was built specifically for this segment and is used by carriers across Estonia, with active expansion across Germany, the Netherlands, France and Spain. A small dispatcher team can be live within one hour, the driver app is picked up within a week, and there are no setup fees.

Question 9

How do drivers see today's jobs without dispatchers calling them every hour?

Accepted Answer

When drivers depend on phone calls for the day's plan, dispatchers lose hours to repetition and drivers lose context the moment anything changes. A driver app fixes both. In the Planlogi driver app, every job a driver is assigned shows up automatically with addresses, time windows, contact details, instructions, attached documents and the eCMR. When the dispatcher reorders or adds a stop, the change reaches the driver instantly. Pick-ups, drop-offs, signatures and any cargo issues (with photos) are reported back to the dispatcher in real time.

Question 10

Can I track my fleet's shipments in real time without buying a separate GPS system?

Accepted Answer

For most carriers, a TMS-native driver app gives you the visibility you actually need without bolting on a separate telematics product. In Planlogi, every stop is timestamped automatically when the driver reports loading or unloading in the app, the planned ETA recalculates as the trip progresses, and the dispatcher sees which stops are done and which are pending on a live map. Customers receive an automatic SMS with the arrival window. If you already have GPS hardware, Planlogi's API connects to it — you don't need to replace it.

Question 11

Can my customers check their shipment status without calling me?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Planlogi includes a customer portal where each of your customers can enter orders, see real-time fulfilment status, view their proof of delivery (POD) and — if you choose — pricing, all without calling the dispatcher. For one-off shipments, you can send the customer a tracking link instead, which shows the same live status, map and documents. Carriers who switch to a TMS with a portal typically see a sharp drop in inbound 'where's my shipment' calls, which frees up serious dispatcher time.

Question 12

How do I subcontract a transport job to a partner carrier without losing visibility?

Accepted Answer

Subcontracting on paper or by email almost always means lost visibility: you don't know when the partner accepted, who the driver is, or whether the consignment note is complete. In Planlogi, you forward an order or a full trip to a subcontractor in one click. They confirm via a secure link, enter the executing driver and vehicle, and are added to the eCMR automatically. The shipment stays visible in your dispatcher view, the eCMR is correct on the first pass, and the invoice still flows through automatically.