Encoder Technologies

Logistics

Logistics software for warehousing, freight and supply-chain operations

Warehouse management, consignment tracking, freight documentation and 3PL client billing.

Problem

Stock belonging to several clients tracked on shared spreadsheets, with handling charges estimated at the end of the month.

Software

A warehouse system with per-client custody, location-level stock, scanned inbound and outbound flows, and billing driven by recorded events.

Result

Accurate client stock positions, handling billed from what actually happened, and a customer portal that answers its own questions.

Where transportation is about the movement, logistics is about everything around it: what is in the warehouse, whose it is, how it was received, where it is going, and what to bill for holding and handling it. The two overlap operationally and diverge completely in their data models.

The centre of a logistics system is custody. Every unit has an owner, a location, a condition and a chain of events explaining how it arrived — and for third-party logistics operators, that chain is the invoice. We build these systems so that receiving, put-away, picking, packing and dispatch each write to that record.

Client visibility is the other half. A 3PL that can give its customers a live view of their own stock and consignments removes a whole category of enquiry, and it is usually the feature that wins the contract.

What breaks in logistics

  • Custody across multiple owners

    A 3PL warehouse holds stock belonging to different clients. Ownership, not just quantity, has to be a first-class field or billing and reporting both break.

  • Locations that only exist in someone's head

    Without location-level records, picking depends on the staff who happen to know where things are, and accuracy collapses during turnover.

  • Handling charges reconstructed monthly

    Storage, handling and value-added services are billable events. Estimated later, they are systematically under-billed.

  • Documentation for freight

    Consignment notes, manifests and customs paperwork have to be generated consistently from the same records, not retyped per shipment.

What we build

  1. 01

    Warehouse management

    Locations, inbound receipt with scanning, put-away, picking and packing, cycle counts and stock adjustments with reasons.

  2. 02

    Consignment tracking

    Shipments, manifests, milestone events and exception handling, with a status history that can be shown to a client.

  3. 03

    Client billing

    Per-client rate cards for storage and handling, billable events captured as they occur, and invoices generated from them.

  4. 04

    Client portal

    A permissioned view of a client's own stock, inbound and outbound history and documents.

Other industries

FAQ

Logistics — questions

How is this different from your transportation work?

Transportation systems model jobs and vehicles; logistics systems model custody and locations. Businesses that do both usually need both models connected, which is a design decision we make early.

Do you support barcode or RFID scanning?

Barcode scanning is standard in what we build, on handheld devices or phones. RFID we integrate where a client already operates the hardware.

Have a product in mind?

Tell us what you're building, improving or automating. We'll help turn the idea into reliable software.