The Processes of a Freight Forwarder

The Processes of a Freight Forwarder

A freight forwarder is an important part of the cargo industry that transports trillions of goods annually. By working closely with your freight forwarder, you can ensure the best experience in shipping globally. If you are in business, by partnering up with a great freight forwarder, you can expand and grow your trading business.

One of the many processes of a freight forwarder is to understand the ins and outs of international trade and logistics, along with the many regulations that come with global scale trading. Whilst to business traders, expanding onto an international level can be daunting especially with the many rules and regulations of the country’s you are dealing with, a freight forwarder will help with navigating through them with ease and expertise.

Acting as middle men, the processes of a freight forwarder involves being the parties that deals with the companies (or individuals) sending cargo overseas and the shippers that are responsible for transporting the cargo. It is important to remember that freight forwarders are not shippers as a more specialised service is offered. With their understanding of international trading and its regulations, one of the processes of a freight forwarder involves facilitation of goods shipping internationally successfully.

The processes of a freight forwarder are extensive, where representatives of a freight forwarding firm have a great command of the laws and regulations of global trading, the paperwork involved with sending/receiving logistics. From taking care of the cargo manifests, to shipping insurance & claims, taking care of shipping goods on internal bills of lading,  there is much that a freight forwarder undertakes.

The processes of a freight forwarder can be broken into several stages;

1st Stage: Export Haulage – transporting goods from the warehouse to the designated warehouse of the freight forwarder

2nd Stage: The 2nd stage of the processes of a freight forwarder entails the receiving of the cargo and thereby checking and ensuring that all the cargo goods are ready for transportation.

3rd Stage:  The documentation stage of the processes of a freight forwarder that involves dealing with customs clearance, whereby the submission of  documents is required prior to sign-off of the goods before leaving the country of origin, that is, Australia.

4th Stage:  The 4th stage of the processes of a freight forwarder includes the receipt of the goods within the destination country and the often the offer of customs clearance on this end is also provided by the freight forwarder should you need it.  Once having cleared through the destination country’s customs and all paperwork handled along with payment, your cargo goods will be transported to the warehouse which is known as import haulage and thereafter delivered to address as required.