Transportation Management System (TMS)

A transportation management system is the central platform shippers use to manage freight from order release through carrier payment. It replaces the patchwork of spreadsheets, email threads, and phone calls that most logistics teams default to – consolidating load planning, rate shopping, carrier tendering, shipment tracking, document management, and freight audit into a single system.

A modern TMS typically handles several core functions: building shipments from open orders, comparing rates across carriers and modes (FTL, LTL, intermodal, parcel), tendering loads, generating shipping documents like bills of lading and ASNs, tracking shipments in transit, managing exceptions, auditing freight invoices, and producing analytics on cost and carrier performance. The best systems connect directly to ERPs, carrier networks, and warehouse partners so data flows without manual re-entry.

For mid-market shippers – especially those managing 100+ loads per week across temperature-controlled or multi-mode supply chains – a TMS is the difference between reactive firefighting and strategic control. Without one, teams lose hours to manual load building, miss billing errors that quietly erode margins, and lack the visibility to catch problems before customers do.

Legacy TMS platforms earned a reputation for painful implementations, rigid workflows, and six-figure price tags. The current generation of cloud-based, AI-native systems has compressed onboarding from months to weeks and shifted the model toward unlimited users and shipments rather than per-transaction pricing – making a real TMS accessible to shippers who previously couldn't justify the cost or timeline.